21 November 2016 Final Entry

Buenos Dias todos!!!! Espero que hayan disfrutado de esta semana pasada!! Yo si lo he hecho, y espero que ustedes tambien :) so YEAH!!! This email will be quick and bitter sweet since if anyone is actually interested in knowing how my last week was, they can ask me in person or on the phone xD real quick what happened yesterday then i just want to leave you all with some dying words and comments ;) so for my last Sunday, i got to give a farewell talk in the branch, and dang that was hard. I served there for a whole year of my mission and i'm gonna miss those people SO MUCH!!!! at the end of sacrament meeting, a couple of the mothers were like "well thanks elder for making all of us moms cry." haha! it was nice to be able to say bye to everyone like that :) anywes, that was real quick, now to get all mushy and stuff ;) Honestly, the mission has been, hands down, the greatest experience of my life to this point. I know there was a lot more time, effort, work, tears, and struggles put into making this all possible, and i know there are more people that i don't even know of who helped make it possible, and i will never be able to thank you all enough. This has changed my life and i have had the chance to touch the lives of others and change their lives too in a way that i NEVER could have done had i not served a mission. just yesterday some members were telling us how to them, even if we feel like we didn't have a successful mission, that we were successful to them because we were the missionaries who helped their son get on his mission, and he's now in Argentina helping other people change their lives. I have learned lessons out here that can't be learned anywhere else besides the mission field, and i know that i also learned things that i couldn't have learned in any OTHER mission besides this exact one. I know the Lord had and has a plan for me, and that's exactly why he called me to this mission at this time. The struggles i had and times i passed through were exactly what i needed. I never told you of any of the REAL struggles had here, but just let it be known, it's a miracle that i stayed the duration of my mission from start to finish. The Lord truly sustained me through my mission, and i have developed a significantly deeper love and understanding of the atonement throughout my time here. I have come to better grasp the not only forgiving power of the atonement, but also the enabling power that it offers. The atonement is not only for the sinner, but also for the weak at heart and those who are stumbling to hold onto the things that matter most. I can now, without a doubt, say that i know my Saviour lives, and that He has restored His gospel to the earth today, and that we have a living prophet who gives us His word today. I know he suffered pain that no man will EVER understand, and that the benefits that we can have now because of His perfect love are extended to all those who come before him humble, and ready to do His will. I leave you all with my highest gratitude for ANYTHING you have done in any way to support me and help me out, be it prayers, donations, moral support to family or me personally, anything. I thank you all so much and leave this LAST missionary email with you foos, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. ​Sincerely and with much love. Elder Levi​ Alexander​ Windham T​hank you

31 October 2016

Herro everybody!!! I hope you've all had a pretty dope-tastic week!! mine's been pretty good :) This week has been pretty good for a couple reasons! I shall describe them as short stories, narrated by yours truly: [the person reading this email]. So for starters, we did all the cookie deliveries this week!!!! There were a few pretty fun stories and i shall continue to recount the FIRST and WORST (well, more like scariest) one. So this is a less-active Mexican family who we used to meet with and they NEVER did anything, so we stopped. Anywes, i went and placed the plate of pumpkin cookies on their porch, knocked, then ran around the corner of the duplex. I watched to see when they came and grabbed the cookies, but they ever came.... so i started going back to knock again and Elder McLaren (who was about 2 yards away) whispers at me. so i look and can't see a thang, and keep going to the door. to my great surprise, as soon as i got to the porch, the door swings open and i just drop to the ground, hoping he didn't see me (i'm also literally right next to the posrch which is not very tall). anyways, my thought was hmm maybe this porch chair will give me sufficient cover that he doesn't see me..? well, lemme tell you that i was totally FALSE in that assumption, and instead of protecting me, he said "eh, que quieres guey?!" and KICKS the chair at me!! so i immediately come out of my very secretive position pleading mercy and forgiveness, saying his name and telling him "LOS MISIONEROS!!!" he then got a little embarrassed and was like oh elder, you can't be doing that! i was ready to fight! hahaha so yeah, that made me pretty paranoid for a lot of the future deliveries, but heaven knows that didn't impede our Booing :) Then also last week, we had another lesson with Emmanuel and Tesoro!!! We taught the restoration all the way through and she seems super solid!! Once we got to the restoration of the priesthood, we extended a baptismal invitation for when she knows what we're teaching is true, and she said YES!!!!! So she's pretty dang solid. Elder Nuttall said she kind of reminds him of Gloria, and look what SHE DID!!!!!! #enduretotheend Speaking of Gloria, we had a lesson with her too!! it was a pretty good lesson. She's also totally solid and believes everything :) also she, Luisa, and Sophia ALL came to church yesterday!!!! and they stayed all 3 hours too :) it was nice because they talked a bunch about missionary work for the members and then in 3rd hour, since it was the 5th Sunday, they had it all combined and they talked about genealogy work and whatnot, and apparently Luisa is super interested in genealogy work!! So that'll be perfect for her because she can do all the work then take the names to the temple :) SO SICK!!! Also this week, we had interviews. pretty much for that, president basically just renewed my temple recommend since it expired October and i need to renew it before i go home, which is in very little time............ SO, the reason for the which i started emailing SO LATE today is because this morning we went to go on a hike with the other branch spanish missionaries!!!! it was pretty nippy and pretty dark when we started. we had to use flashlights for like the first 20 minutes!! it was super fun :) i don't currently have pictures, but at some point in the near future, i'll probably blow all of your electronic devices up with pictures and whatnot :) so that was kind of our week!! not everything, of course, but some of it :) i hope you guys all have a great Halloween and don't do anything unwise and you enjoy having a normal life. because imma join you in, like, 25 days or something like that....... TTYL!!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

3 October 2016

Good morning everyone! I hope you all had a great conference weekend :) i know I DID!!!!! This has honestly been another slower week unfortunately, but that's ok!! we can't let the slow times get us down :) alls i know is i've been having much more meaningful studies and it feels better to know that i'm at least trying to find people out there, we just haven't found them yet :) so yeah!! Tuesday we had ESL and that was an interesting night... So imma let you all know of this funny little story just because we all got a pretty good kick out of it xD in our ESL class, there is a chinese girl named Chloe (just her english name). She's been in Canada for about 3 years and her mom is here too and has been here for like 2 months. anywes, Chloe speaks pretty good english and is pretty used to the Canadian culture now and whatnot, and also has a big ole fat crush on one of her English teachers.... the one and only Elder Windham!! So we've all know this for a pretty good time now, and last week, at the end of class, she comes up to me and asks me ON A DATE!!!!! dang, that was flippin awkward... of course i had to explain that we don't date and do stuff like that on a mission, and if we were to do anything, we would all 3 go.. haha i don't think she'd really like that as much... but what the heck!!! that's honestly like the third of fourth time on the dang mission that i've been asked out. honestly more than ever happened back home.. haha! so that was funny :P Wednesday we got to go teach a little kid who's turning 8 on the tenth of this month and his mom wants him to hear the lessons before his baptism! him and his little brother are super chill haha. But dang, teaching kids is WAY different and harder than teaching older people.. haha! Thursday was the baptism of the 95 year investigator of the hermanas!! seriously SO CUTE!!!! there were FOUR people in the font making sure that it was all good! xD it was definitely an experience to remember :) hahahahaha ok, so i gotta tell you what i said during our missionary presentation while she was changing after the baptism xD so we watched the #hallelujah video and then kinda had a discussion kind of thing with everyone who was there. Then when we were baring final testimonies before sitting back down, i was like "so, i can imagine that most of you have thought to your self 'wouldn't she have been able to just die and then we do the temple work for her?' BUT that's not the case!! The Lord has preserved her all this time and given her the strength that she can still accept the gospel and follow the Saviours example and be baptised." so it started off TERRIBLE and there were quite a few gasps and giggles, but i came back quick and managed to maintain the spirit. I haven't gotten too much flak for it so i think i got off safe ;) haha! just future refrence, don't always say exactly what you are other people are thinking 😅 Then this weekend was CONFERENCE!!!!! Honestly, it has gone by SO fast since i started paying close attention and taking notes, and you get so much more out of it!! One of the talks that really touched me was when Sister Reeves talked about using the atonement. One of the things she talked about was how sometimes we think that the best thing to do when we've committed a grave sin is to not tell our bishop or others about it in order to "protect" them from the hurt feelings that can come from hearing about something bad we've done. Obviously we don't have to admit EVERY little siin, but there are the few large ones that may require our confession and a more outward effort to receive full forgiveness. That's something that we can all do is if we are trying to hold in our sin and guilt because we don't want to bring shame or disgrace on ourselves or hurt to those we know and love, to not hold that back!! the guilt will just eat us away and eventually we won't be able to bare it anymore. If we just bring them before the Lord and talk to the proper people who have been called by the Lord to help in situation exactly like this, then we will feel the love and relief that the atonement offeres and that guilt will be washed away and as we find in the scriptures,"i the Lord will remember [your sins] no more." that peace of mind and relief of guilt is worth it so much more than holding it all in. I love you all SO MUCH, and i hope you all have a great week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham p.s. in case you are wondering why it says transfer week, that's because it's TRANSFER WEEK!!!! I'm not sure what exactly will happen this Thursday, but it will be the last chance i have to be transferred or get a new companion. 7 weeks from this Friday, i will be coming home........ THE MISSION CAN'T BE COMING TO AN END!!!!!!!

19 September 2016

Helloooo everyone!!! thank you for joining me again on this fabulous Monday morning. I'm your host, Elder Windham, and i'm about to give you all the low down on how this week done gone down!! So we had a pretty dang successful week, let's just say that for starters. The primary reason for that is because we found FOUR NEW INVESTIGATORS!!!! what what!! Crazy because that makes up close to 1/3 of all the investigators i've ever had for my entire mission. haha! yeah...... SO, two of them we found when we received a referral from some english elders for a lady who had apparently taken lessons before, and was interested in meeting some more missionaries. She's from Venezuela and her name beith Marilyn. She has 3 years in Canada and is here with her husband and has 2 kids. she's SUPER sweet and i think she'll be pretty open and accepting :) then when we met her, by surprise, we also met a friend of hers who is here learning English. He's been here for like 3 weeks now but speaks a tiny bit of english already (i'm pretty sure). But we've only met them once and shared some of the restoration with them, so we shall see where it goes :) Then one day we decided to pass by a former that was taught last year. They had trouble meeting last year because it was right after her husband DROWNED. but when we went by, we were only expecting to talk for a bit and she let us in!! (i think i may have already told you all that..... oh well) Anyways, we went back last Thursday to trim her trees (future reference, don't have missionaries trim your trees 😅) then shared a message about how God is our loving Heavenly Father. Interesting thing to note, last year when she was being taught, her mom wouldn't sit in on the lesson, but when they asked if she had been reading the Book of Mormon, she would say "no, but my mom has read some of it." and THEN when we were about to start the lesson, we asked her mom if she wanted to join for the lesson, and she was like "yeah, of course i would." SICK!!!! it'd be crazy if this whole time the mom has just been being prepared and now she can like help the daughter start doing stuff :) Then the last one we've started teaching is an 8 year old kid who's mom isn't a member but his aunt and cousins are, and he goes with them to church and loves going to church, so he said he wants to get baptized!!! So we gone teach him all do good stuff so he can be right and ready to get dunked :) haha! So yeah, besides that, nothing much.... except on Saturday we got to go to THE TEMPLE!!!!!! So i totally forgot to tell you all (i think.... i'm very forgetful) that a couple weeks ago, one of the kids here in the branch got his mission call to the Neucan Argentina mission!!! He lives the 26 of NEXT MONTH and he's going to the MTC... somewhere down there :P but on Saturday he took out his endowments and we and the other Spanish elders all went to the temple with him and his family and all their other Mexican friends (like, they're actually Mexican, not just Spanish and i say they're Mexican haha). Then afterwards we all went to Costco for some hotdogs and poutine :) YUM!!! oh yeah, this week we also had our zone conference and it was AWESOME!!!! It is my LAST zone conference EVER!!!! i couldn't believe it when i realised it. In fact, i still slightly can't believe it, but it flippin happened, and it was definitely a great last zone conference :) we totally have the best mission president ever :P haha! Whale, that was my week in a nutshell (kinda a big nutshell but whatevs haha). I hope you've all been doing great, and i want you to know that whatever happens in this life, or whatever trial you're going through, it'll be 10x lighter and easier if you allow the Lord to step in and lend a helping hand :) you're all the best and i'll talk to you laterz!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

5 Sept 2016

HERRO ERYBODY!!!!!!! i hope everyone has had a great week this past week :) mines been pretty good!! not a lot happened because we had other stuff going on that had to do with transfers, but dats alright, we're planning on working HARD this transfer and getting lots of work done :) so yeah, that's mostly all i have to report on is transfers :P turns out that for the first time in my mission, i am on a 3-leg!!!! both me and Nuttal stayed here in downtown Calgary and we received an addition to our ranks. Elder McLaren!! He's from Alaska and is big on football and working out. Not super BIG, but he's a fit dude and it'll be nice to have someone who can help me get motivated. not to mention he brought a bench and 125lbs of weight with him. haha!! So this transfer will be filled with WORK and working OUT ;) ;) but so yeah, i believe this will be my lamest email yet. so i shall re-address you all in a week from now and inform you on the progress of the Lord's work :) take care and you all da bomb!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

29 August 2016

Might i say, i am now part of the old person club.... I have now completed the ripe old age of TWENTY-ONE!!!! If i wanted to drink in the U.S. i could... but heaven knows that'll never happen... haha! funny thing though is in Canada, the legal drinking age is 18... what the?? haha but either way, my birfday was yesterday, and it was a pretty good one :) allow me to explain why :P So this week (and pretty much the whole transfer) has revolved almost completely around Gloria. Every planning session, every companionship study, every lesson idea has pretty much been geared toward her and what she will need to in order to be baptized. So this past week we had two lessons in prep for her baptism on Saturday. First one was Tuesday and we were PLANNING on having a quick 30-45 minute lesson, but being the second to last lesson and with the topics we covered (baptismal questions, tithing, fasting, fast offerings and how to donate offerings) it ended up being dragged out to a two HOUR lesson!!! whoa, we defs don't take that long every time, but we talked a bunch about church on Sunday where like all the talks and lessons in classes were based on families and eternal marriages and whatnot. So she was like "do you guys do that every sunday? just have everything based on the same thing?" we were like well in sacrament meeting sometimes, but how gospel principles was based on it too was just a perfectly timed move made by God.. haha! ok we didn't word it exactly like that but you get the idea ;) and then Wednesday was her INTERVIEW!!!!! Elder Cervantes (who is dead.. mission terms) did the interview. He is from Costa Rica and was the AP, and had been zone leader and also district leader and never done a baptismal interview, so he was SUPER excited and honored to be able to do it for her, AND he finished his mission LAST WEEK!!! like literally the interview was Wednesday and he went home Friday. He was really appreciative of that :) Then Thursday was weekly planning day... basically all of that was prep for her baptism on Saturday haha. Friday we had our LAST LESSON!!!! It was a dang good one too. We talked about temples, baptisms for the dead, eternal marriage, family history work, and all of that good stuff :) but she was pretty intrigued and interested in the baptisms for the dead, and when we explained it to her, she immediately accepted :) Saturday was just a busy day in general. we helped with a move at 10 in the morning and didn't finish until close to 1:00!!! then a family was having a birthday party for their daughter at 3, so we went to that for like an hour. but then we drove straight up to the stake center to make sure the baptism before us didn't drain the font......... the did not.. whew!! so we ran all the way back down to the south side of Calgary to pick up the dinner for the baptism (a Uruguayan soup thing.. flippin bomb.com), then went back up to the stake center to set up more chairs and tables for refreshments (more like dinner in the spanish culture haha). luckily the family of one of the ladies who was gonna give a talk showed up early to help prepare everything, so we got that done just in time. then as time starts passing, people are beginning to shop up. another things to note about spanish culture is if you say something is at a certain time, you better believe that it ain't starting at that time.. haha! the "time" for the baptismal service to start was set for 7:00, but hardly anyone was there by 7:15.. haha! but by the time we got started, the whole room was full. we originally set up 60 chairs, but they had set up another row just to be safe, and they told me that there was maybe only 5 chairs empty. it was amazing how many people came to see it :) anyways, Gloria got there around 7:20, she got dressed, i got dressed, and the service began. I just want to say, being able to participate in someone's baptism like that has changed my perspective on the mission a lot. The fact that she chose me to perform the baptism and how much effort we put in to prepare everything and get everything taken care of was incredible. She was so nervous going into the font, but when i said the prayer and baptized her, after i got the thumbs up and they closed the doors, she just started crying. She turned to me and looked up and all she said was "thank you" and gave me a hug and continued crying. i don't know how long it was , but i hadn't felt so happy in my whole mission. Several people told us later that it was the best baptismal service they had ever attended, and even when she came up out of the water, she came out "gracefully". the time, effort, preparation, prayers, fasting, and everything that went into her being baptized was all 100% worth it. This church is flippin true. thank you everyone for your love and support. This mission has changed me and continues to do so. I can't wait to get home and see how much my perspective has changed once i get to the "real world" again. i hope everyone is doing well, ad i shall re-address you all next week :) have a great week! love, Elder Levi windham

22 August 2016

WELCOME to the weekly update on the life of Elder Levi Windham of the Canada Calgary Mission!!!! this has been an eventful, but not so eventful, past week. Weird how that works out sometimes.. like it feels like stuff happened, but not much did. the week just flew right by me and i haven't a clue how it slipped away so fast... Must be my brain starting to slow down because of how flippin old i am in the mission.. haha!! just kidding, but did you guys know that on Thursday, i will have only 3 stinkin months left on the mission? How weird is that??? Like i literally used to only be OUT for 3 months, and now i have that much left.. Why is time going so quick?? but don't worry, i don't think about it too much, which is why i think it's going so fast haha. so yes!! this week honestly not a TON happened besides Gloria came to church yesterday... WHOOP WHOOP!!!! we literally only have to teach 2 more lessons and we will have taught all the doctrines that need to be taught before baptism, and i know she'll be fine in the baptismal interview :) we were talking about it this morning because we're gonna go over the baptismal questions tonight in our lesson, and we both felt she would be fine answering all of them :) even our branch president came to the lesson last week and he said he felt like she was ready for baptism :) so i will re-update you on the situation next week when it has either happened or not happened.. haha! As the Lord desires :) So yeah, this week we mostly tried to go by less-actives so we could update their info (address, number, etc.). It took a couple days to finish our weekly planning because we were working on the baptismal program which took FO EVA to make!!! but eese all good. It looks flippin sick :) oh, a big thing that did happen (besides our lessons with Gloria and her being amazing) was on Saturday, the branch had a branch picnic!! that was WAY fun!!! we played some football (the american kind haha), some soccer (other football),did some jump rope stuff, played a couple games, and THEN, for the final activity before we left, they did this thing where they took a rope and would hold it at varying heights and see who could jump the highest. I don't know if you all know, but i gots some hops... Like once i'm warmed up, i'm straight up able to dunk a basketball :) anyways, so me, one of the youth, and this other kid who's likea year or so younger than me and a recent convert were the last ones going. Eventually it was just me, and i flippin CLEARED that thing!!! The girl who was holding it is like 5'5" or something like that, and she had it up to her chin... i made it. then she put it to her nose.... i made it!! and THEN she put it up over her head so it was as tall as her!! i tried..... failed. BUT, i was determined to make it, so i tried again and i flippin MADE IT!!!! So i am able to jump and clear a height of almost five and a half feet!!! super crazy and it was SO FUN!!! the youth who stayed in the longest was like bro, you got hops man! haha that was a fun day :) also got SUPER sun burned!!! xD so yup, that was at least the gist of my week :) i hope everyone is doing great (or better), and you all keep focusing on your scripture studies. I know that's what has helped me a TON this last month or so, so if you're not doing it, DO IT!!! ;) talk to you all next week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

27 June 2016

Good morning everyone!! whoa, crazy, i just realized that if it's still morning here, "technically" it could be afternoon in Texas... CRAY!!! anywes, this week has had some interesting experiences! the most interesting one having to do a born again christian (i'm tellin ya, i've had more interesting conversations with those people than anyone else haha). But i will say though before i start that there really isn't very much at all the report on this week. like we had 2 lessons and that was it.. somehow we were still decently busy with a couple moves but that was it on the teach side of things :/ SO, one of our 2 teaching appointments was with the Baca family!! they're a super cool family who just needs to have a testimony and get going back to church (as do they all). it was a good lesson and we shared the restoration with them! I feel like it was like a review for all of them because i asked if they really remembered who Joseph Smith was and they were all like uummmmmm no.. haha! but it was a good lesson and we invited them to all start reading the Book of Mormon each day and they accepted. We're gonna follow up this week and then we have another lesson with them on Friday. We're probably gonna keep going through the missionary lessons and hope that works :) Well, the rest of the week was pretty lame. our other lesson was really just a message with a less-active member who still has a testimony but works on Sundays a lot so he hasn't been for a while. HOWEVER, he was at church on Sunday!!!!! He's actually technically our ward mission leader but hasn't gone for like 2 or 3 months or something like that.. that's cray!! he was totally active when i was here a year ago.. haha! but he was there Sunday which is awesome :) then our interesting conversation with the born again lady!! so just how we came into contact with her, she apparently called the mission office asking for help moving a couch out of her apartment. well we get there and turns out she needs help Moving all her stuff out!! (she as moving outside Calgary) so we're like ummm we can stay and help with the rest, we don't really have anything else going on that we need to get to.. so we stayed and had some other missionaries come and help out. After we finished though she started asking us some questions aimed at just taking down the church a bit because of lack of physical evidence.. then we got onto a HUGE discussion on the character (i guess you could call it) of God and the godhead. we tried to share several scriptures with her proving that that God and Jesus Christ are 2 separate beings (some of which include the intercessory prayer, Acts 7 where Steven sees God the Father and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and a couple others) and even after reading them and pointing out how they are seen together as 2 separate beings, and she's just like "well i have to go back to the Greek version of the bible to see exactly what it says." and then the last question was if we had seen any people be healed with our priesthood we have. i told her i hadn't but i had heard some people my parents knew (Daniel's Scoliosis) and the other elders shared a couple stories, then she went on to tell us how she has personally healed people herself and prayed over them and felt their bones reforming, sockets reforming, etc. and she doesn't know why she would join a church where miracles like that "don't happen." But the thing is, they're doing those things with a power that isn't of God and according to the stories, faith isn't even a requirement to do the miracles it seems.. so i don't believe at all that they have an authority given from God...... anyways, enough crazy talk!! that was a weird experience, and she said a lot of flippin insane things that make me more aware of how much craziness there is in the world. But not in the church!! we have the REAL authority, and we wield it worthily, and that's something i'll never doubt :) anywes, i love the freak out of you guys and love the freak out of this gospel. the church is true yall!! have a great week :) Love, Elder Levi Windham

30 May 2016

WELCOME EVERYONE!!! To the weekly email of Elder Levi A. Windham!!! This week hasn't been TOO cray, but it was still pretty aight :) So for starters, I think I told you guys about the native kid who had some questions about the Book of Mormon. Well we were goin to have a lesson with him on Tuesday, aaaannnndddd he didn't answer.. Like how lame is that?? But later that day, we were trying to knock some doors in an area that potentially could have Spanish peeps, and after like 3 doors, these kids started following is around and talking to us about Star Wars and stuff, and would NOT stop following us, even when we'd go up to a door.. Like that pretty much knew everyone on the block, but they would go up to the door with us and be like "can we talk to the people with you?" It was pretty funny/cute/annoying, but the most of those 3 would be funny for sure because they kept wanting to go to the doors with us. Haha! So we didn't get much done there unfortunately :P Also, do you guys remember the guy who we were gonna help him with bending his leg? Well, we had to return on Wednesday to give him a blessing (which tbh isn't so bad. I'm just glad we didn't have to bend his leg). It was actually really nerve racking though because we were talking with him an he was saying how he wants to be up and walking out of there by FRIDAY, and he had just barely gotten his surgery a few days prior, and when he would hit try to move in his seat, he would wince in pain... So we talked some more and told him how whatever happens, it'll be the Lord's will and time. But he insisted that we bless him, and he honestly helped my faith, because he was telling us how yes, it is the Lord's timing, but how we have also been given that authority and we could wield it to bring to pass healings and miracles like that. So it was scary but comforting all at the same time, and I'm glad we got the chance to do that for him :) Ok, so the craziest thing that happened this past week by FAR, was when we went to help ​this​ lady with her yard. We had previously met her once before when we helped them move their daughter out. She is the friend of one of the Spanish members and he told us to come over because he ​would​ be mowing their lawn, then he ​wanted​ us to share a message afterward or something. So we got their, and he apparently was expecting us to HELP with the yard.. So we went back an changed, and when we got back, elder Bailey was outside, and I was inside with her and the Spanish member/friend. Like as soon as I got to the door, he tells her "ok, we're ready for you to come back to church. We want to see you there, and we're ready for you to change your life and start going." I was like oh shoot, what did I just get myself into.? So had like a good 5-10 minute discussion between us, and she kept saying like "you are really opening a can of worms with this one." And "I hope you know what you're getting into" and she told him "if this doesn't work, then I'm never talking to you again." It was NUTS I tell you! She's having problems with her marriage and whatnot, and after talking,cache just told me about some other issues in her life. Soooo I only hope we can help to some degree with all this. BUT, that's the thing, and I told her that too, but WE can't help her. He has to want the help, and she can only find it in Christ. If you want help with something in your life, turn to Him, and come closer to him in all ways possible (i.e. Scripture study, personal prayer, church attendance, etc.). Anywes, we had gone back by yesterday while they weren't home and started finishing up their yard, and she got home while we were like midway through and was like "you guys are hilarious. Did Guillermo tell you to do this?" Nope! We decided ourselves.. Haha! So we are hopefully going to have a family home evening sort of thing with them tomorrow! We'll see how it all goes :) So some fun things to note for the week! ;) on Friday night-Saturday morning, there was a ward campout. We had previously obtained permission from our mission president to go to either the dinner, or breakfast, and the English elders in the ward would go to the other. So we decided to go to the breakfast since a Spanish member had told us that he had some Chilean friends who were going to that and not the dinner. So we headed up there, and (not very surprisingly) neither Spanish member NOR his friends were there.. So instead of doing missionary work, we got to eat a ton of breakfast sandwiches, play bacci ball, and come back.. That was a downer :/ then like an hour later, we went to Firestone with some members who take us there every once and a while, and had ANOTHER huge meal!! However, that was some dang good steak.. Haha! So between then and lunch, we had 2 appointments set up, and they BOTH fell through!!! Like for reals, not so bad when one falls through, because then you contact some people until the next one.. But BOTH?? Oh well, eese all good :P Oh yeah, yesterday the bishops son gave his farewell talk for going on his mission (he leaves next week), and that thing was CRAZY good!!! Like he talked about his conversion story and just what it was like for him the past year or so, and the changes he's made to get to this point.. It was flippin crazy to hear it all, and it made me tear up pretty good. In high school, he was the basketball star and like super popular, and there was a TON of nonmembers there! It was cool though because when he was talking about the changes he had made and how happy he was now, I could see several of his nonmember/less active friends crying too, and it was awesome to see the affect he could have on them. We're all hoping that some of them were touched, and maybe it would trip something I them that would make them want to start changing too. Who knows! But all I know is that was probably the best farewell I've ever seen :) Anywes, that's about it. I've been writing in my journal lately, so I'm actually remembering the stuff that happened throughout the week.. Haha! But you guys should write in your journal. Doesn't have to be like detailed for every day, but just a little something that you can keep for laterz :) have a great week! Love, Elder Levi Windham Oh and p.s. So we have this amazing recipe for chocalte chip cookies, we made some earlier this week and had given some to the sisters, and upon getting home, we both ate a cookie, and realized wow, this is very salty.. THAT would be because instead of a teaspoon of salt, someone added a TABLEspoon of salt.. Yummmyyyy..... So we told the sisters that they can throw them out if they want and we'll make some more another time to make up for trying to poison them ;) haha!

23 May 2016

Good morming everybody!! So our mission president asked the zone to help out with a 5K this morning, and it was FREEZING!!!!! And raining, which was super lame, and we just stood there and gave people water, and most of them didn't even want any.. So we were just wet and freezing our buns off :P Anyways though!! This week though was FULL of weird/crazy/fun experiences!! So for starters, let's talk about some tracting experiences ;) So we've been continuing our search in Highland Park, and we actually found TWO Spanish people!! The first one was in his way out to work, so we just got his number before he left. But the other one like said hey to us on the porch, we noticed he had a shirt with some Honduran company thing on it, so we started talking in Spanish, and he just let us right in!! We talked with him for maybe 10 minutes, but he too had to go to work, so we just got his number. So we called him Saturday to see when we could go by, and he was like "well, i don't work tomorrow (Sunday)." we didn't know if that meant "i don't work tomorrow, so come over" or "i don't work tomorrow, so call me then." So we decided to go over, and he opened the door and let us right in!! We ended up just chatting with him for like an hour and a half just about his country, and some of the other Mormon friends he knew back home, and some of the ones here who are Canadian but speak Spanish because they served Spanish speaking missions, and just other stuff! So it was nice to just talk with him (especially in Spanish), and invite him to come play soccer with us and some other people throughout the week (which is something else we do), and he was like yeah sure, if i can. So we'll call and set something up for later this week. I think he likes us because he gave us milk and homemade bread and almost looked like he didn't want us to leave when we were leaving. Supa cool guy :) Also, we were out tracting in a DIFFERENT area that hopefully has some Spanish people, and the first lady was an Afghani lady (I think that's what they're called..?) and she said the lady next door used to be Mormud (neither of us could understand her), and she couldn't do all these things and whatnot, so she left it, then went to another church and found Jesus there. So we talked a bit more and were like well, have you ever heard of the Book of Mormon? And she was like oh yeah! That's what she talked about. We were like oh snap, she wasn't Mormud, she was MORMON, and she found Jesus in another church..? Haha but we went ahead and knocked her door, and she let us in!! She was really nice, and she has come a long way from how she used to be. The ONLY problem with where she "found" Jesus, is that she found it in a church that just doesn't have the proper authority.. But she's happy and doing better than she used to, and that's awesome :) we'll probably go back by later this week to talk with her some more. Well those were just some of the nicer tracting experiences. We met several native people, and one of them just would not accept the Book of Mormon, and was like "no, that's for the people down in Arizona and Mexico. They're a different tribe from us. We've been around for over 30,000 years. We didn't come over on ships or the land-bridge like the others did. We were the originals." Oh por favor! But whatevs! Another native kid though, when we mentioned the Book of Mormon, was like "oh yeah! See I have some questions about that thing, so you guys should come back some time.." So we went back by on Sunday and talked on a bit on his porch, explained what the Book of Mormon is, a bit of how it came to be, and set up an appointment for tomorrow!! He's a pretty nerdy, weird guy, but doesn't seem bashy, but more curious than anything, so we'll see. So yeah, besides the tracting, we got to do some other pretty fun/interesting things too!! Like on Friday, we got a text from the zone leaders telling us that someone in the hospital needed help "bending his leg"... Like what?? So we went to the hospital and asked the nurses and people, and apparently he had surgery that morning and was going to need some therapy or something, and he wanted us to do it..? Not entirely sure, but the nurses told us that they were already gonna have some REAL therapists do that stuff for him. So we ended up not having to do it :P then LATER that day, we got to go to a TRAMPOLINE PARK!!!! Lemme tell ya, that was SO MUCH FLIPPIN FUN!!!! For the entire hour, I was just bouncing off the walls with excitement (see what I did there? ;) hahaha!!) but seriously, I haven't had that much fun on trampolines in my whole stinkin life. Like fo reals, SO many back flips, front flips, twisty trick flip things, slam dunks, dodge ball, you stinkin name it!! The guys we went with were just like man, did you do gymnastics back home or something? "No." Ok, then parkour? "No." Your dad is a doctor "no." Your dad is a dentist "no." Your dad is rich "no." Haha! I don't even know why those were the questions, but I was goin HAM at that place!! I'll send you guys a couple videos in a bit ;) Anywes it was a fun week, and we worked a lot trying to find people to teach, and hopefully we'll start finding some. It's pretty boring having nothing to do :P but you guys rock, and I shall address you again next week ;) take care! Love, Elder Levi Windham

11 April 2016

WUTUP ERYBUDY?? Did you know that transfers are already NEXT WEEK??? i can't believe how time has already flown by so flippin fast.. and to think, if this was a regular 6 week transfers instead of a 7, transfers would be this week... WOW!!! The mission is passing me by and i don't know where it's going!!!! oh well, i guess it must continue and i must report how it goes for me ;) So this past week was pretty ight. We taught a couple of our investigators and less-actives, which is good!! We met with the Ventura family and taught them a little more about the Book of Mormon and answered some of their questions. They SEEM to have real intent and want to make some progress, but they don't keep any of the commitments and they always cancel our lessons. Oh well, hay que seguir :P We also met with Allan last Monday. they said he watched conference which is good!! The family watched it in English on the main TV, but he watched it in Spanish.. i think.. i don't know if i caught/understood everything, so maybe he just listened to it from the other room..? not sure.. OH WELL!! he did something which is good :) there's a lot of good stuff goin on!! haha ok, so i don't remember if i told you guys about Ligia.. It was a referral we got the other week from some members and she owns a day home and is from Costa Rica. Well, we had been trying to set up an appointment with her for the past week, and she had actually cancelled one that we did set up for Wednesday, and that was a bummer. BUT, we were in the area on Friday and were like "hey, we have some extra time left over (it was like 8:15 at night), let's go by and see if we can set something up." So we went by her house, and they were totally all there!! Her husband answered the door first, and he was like a straight black dude, and i was like ummm boyfriend? NOPE!! He's actually totally costa rican!! he actually comes from a Muslim family, but he didn't really "grow up" Muslim, so he's a Christian with his wife. Well, we talked a bit and he was like "yeah, my wife said she talked with you guys and was gonna meet some time with you, but i didn't now it was at 8:30 at night!" he's like WAY black and it's hilarious, but still super nice. But we ended up setting up and appointment for THE NEXT DAY!!! (Saturday) So we went... and it was AWESOME!!!! We shared the new Easter video with her, and after it all, she was like "wow, you guys believe like the same things about Jesus as we do! and you pray like we do! like when you pray, you are talking to God. a lot of churches don't do that." so something i have found in teaching Evangelicals (at least the ones i know, because some are literally straight anti-mormon) is they have a lot of respect for us as LDS members because we already have a pretty good amount of similarities to their beliefs of Christ :) So yeah, we will start teaching her, her husband, and her younger kid who is 9. I'm really excited for them!! We gave her a copy of the BOM and explained it to her, and she said she will definitely read it and she'll try to have at least half of it done by the time we come back.. isn't that crazy?? she said she likes to read so she's gonna read a bunch of it and she wants to learn all about our church because she previously knew like NOTHING about us. Pues, eso fue la nuestra semana basicamente!! the work is picking up and i'm not quite losing my spanish yet, which. is. good. ;) haha! maybe i'll just make that my catch line now... muahaha!! anywes, have a great week!!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

4 April 2016

HOWDY YALL!!!! This week hasn't been quite so golden as in past weeks, but that's ok, because even with a little slump, the work is STILL managing to progress, and we are finding and teaching new people :) So last week, we had to go give Patrik's kid a blessing because she was having some problems with her head and was going to have to go up to Calgary to have a surgery to fix it. Luckily, everything turned out fine and they're all back again :) we were only able to meet with them once last week because they were gone, but that's ok because it all turned out ok (as ok as it gets when you have to get a surgery i guess). Also, we had set up an appointment with some people that Wimber had taught once before i got here, and he was kinda lacking the faith that they would actually be there, but i kept telling him how sometimes things actually DO work out, and i believed that in that case, it would be one of those times that things did :) well.... THEY DID!!!! we got there and everyone was there and the lesson was great!! they're SUPER nice people and really kinda and inviting. We spent about 15 minutes or so just kinda talking at the beginning so i could kinda establish a friendship and a trust so they would want to listen and accept a little more, then after that, we talked about the Book Of Mormon and it's role in our church and committed them to read it and pray as a family about it. It was a super good lesson and they were way nice to us throughout. After the lesson, he went out to work opn some vehicles, and we stayed there and talked to her a little bit more. Turns out she was like pretty well acquainted with the missionaries back in Honduras, and even here, there was a member who used to take her to church sometimes and she always liked it, but unfortunately that member died of cancer back in December... WOW!!! But her husband is still around and totally active and will totally never stop going to church because he has an awesome testimony and is AWESOME!!! We won't be able to meet until next Friday though because Henry (the husband inv.) works like all this week and next wee until then, so we can't meet before then :/ but that's ok, we'll follow up with them when we can and make sure they're reading :) because that is the ONLY way you can truly become converted to this gospel is by knowing the Book of Mormon is true!! Besides all that, a little fun story!! So you remember how i told you all we went to another ward last Sunday and me and Wimber bore our testimonies there? so funny thing, that ward has a set of sisters, and they had a dinner with a family that has a couple Laurel age girls in it, and they were like "oh, we were so excited when we saw we got 2 cute new elders in our ward, then we were upset when we found out they were just visiting." haha well, after the dinner, the girls were asking the sisters how they can better mark their scriptures, and as they were flipping through, one of them had a little sticky note (or something) on the front of the Book of Mormon with a quote from my testimony saying "the Book of Mormon isn't just a cool story. It's a story of Christ" and she attested it to "the cute spanish missionaries"..... HAHAHA!!!! me and Wimber got a pretty good kick out of that when the sisters told us that xD anywes, on a more serious note, must i say, i LOVE getting to watch and listen to general conference. Seriously though, getting to watch a modern day prophet and his apostles speak to us and give us the word of the Lord is a blessing and a gift that we MUST learn to cherish. To think, 200 years ago, this church didn't even EXIST. 150 years ago, you had to travel great distances and often sacrifice everything you own in order to be able to hear the current prophet. Now, we get to sit in the comfort of our homes and put it on our television and get to hear AND see. What a blessing it is to live in this day of age. However, as we have also been warned, the same things that allow it to be easier to watch spiritual things and have our scriptures with us in our pocket and read the things that matter most, also make it easier to be tempted and use those same devices to corrupt our souls and scars us for life and get addicted to something impure and sinful. So i just thought of a challenge for you guys. As elder M. Russell Ballard talked about in the Saturday afternoon session, have a family council together and discuss the things that need to be discussed, and within that meeting, set a time frame for some point in the future (a full day, couple days, week, etc.) when cell phones and electronic devices are to be used SOLELY for church or work related purposes. I remember in my first area in Brooks, that was something the whole stake challenged everyone to do for a whole week!! So it's possible, you just need the desire to do it ;) well, i love the HECK out of you guys, and hope everything is goin just dandy for ya :) talk to you laterz, and have a great week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

8 February 2016

Hello erbody!! this has been a pretty good week i think!!! some pretty good and also very interesting stories, which is always a blast! haha! so lets get this thing started, shall we? so, as a zone, we have set a goal to contact 3500 people within this month and each companionship set a goal to get a certain number of baptisms, and ours is 1.. but that's goin from us having NO progressing investigators... HOWEVER, the Lord helps those who serve him, and we've already seen some great successes from our efforts :) On Thursday we tracted some apartments that we suspected had at least a couple Spanish people in them. A lot of people actually opened their doors! However, Spanish people..? There was only one. I say again, HOWEVER, that one Spanish person was from Cuba, and she was speaking English the whole time, but as we were about to leave, i asked her where she was from, and she said Cuba, so we told her everything in Spanish and kinda just struck up a little conversation with her. Something interesting to note was that in the beginning, she just kinda stuck her head around and kept the rest of her body behind the door. but by the end of us talking, she had completely come out from behind the door and was talking to us normal, and even told us to come back the next day!! So we came by at the 1 like she said, and she opened and let us right in!! well, this is what i mean by the Lord influences those in need.. She continued to explain that she never answers her door, but for some reason did this time and it happened to be us. well, she also NEVER just lets people into her house, and she did for us for some reason.. THAT'S CRAZY!!! however, we did just have the whole discussion/lesson/chat on her stairs instead of coming up the sit on the furniture.. haha! but that's ok! it was way awesome and she told us like everything about her! She told us about her lack of trust in God because of the things she's seen in her life, and she told us how after we left, she went and google our church and read about us on Wikipedia (lol) and said that she really likes how we focus on families and how important they are, and how we no longer support polygamy (also lol). But she was evangelical before, but she lost her trust in god and stopped going i think about 7 years ago. Anyways, this little explanation about her isn't even half of it. We had ended up just talking to her for like an hour and a half and just getting to know her and stuff and it was so nice!! she seriously opened up a lot and even said "wow, i'm just telling you guys everything." and kept going haha. it was pretty funny, but that just goes to show that people for some reason (ok, not really "some"reason haha) warm up to the missionaries and trust us really fast, and we find out (sometimes) what it is that they truly need in their life :) so with the positive, ya gots to have at least a bit of negative, right? ;) later on, we tracted a bit more in a nearby area,and there was one guy who as soon as he came out, he was just like "didn't i tell you guys to put me down in your book to never come back here?" and me, feeling equally as sarcastic (probably more haha), with a huge smile on my face, told him no, we don't have that. so he's just like well, i told you never to come back here and to leave me alone. you guys are a cult and i'll never think differently. well, he proceded to tell us some other things along those lines, and i just maintained the BIGGEST smile you'll see, and couldn't help but giggle a few times while i responding to something like "your lucky i'm not ripping into you like i have others in the past. you just caught me on a good night." and i (again, probs a little more fun than i should've had) told him "psh, well, i've taken a lot of garbage in my mission, so go ahead and lay it on me. i can take it i'm sure." and he didn't do it!! lame... haha! but the FUNNIEST thing is that during the conversation, i kinda just started commenting on a few things he said about the tabernacle, and he... it was just funny, because i never once got upset, but just kept smiling, and whatever he said, i just kinda took it normal and would respond as if it were a normal conversation, and he would start responding back normal, and by the end, we were just talking about the weather and mosquitoes and the climate in Alberta and just normal stuff, and when i said we had to go, he said "ok boys, you have a great night and good luck. make sure you stay warm!" HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! it was so funny because when i think about it, like my mom used to always say, "It takes TWO to argue." Well, i now have a testimony that if one person does not want to argue, then there won't be an argument, and the tension will die out and we can all be friends in the end :) So that wasn't my whole week by far, but it was just a couple little highlights that i have time to share with you guys :) thank you everyone for your prayers. we can truly feel them in the work and this wouldn't be possible without you all. Thank you everyone, and have a great week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

1 February 2016

Hellooooooooo everybody!! Sorry this is coming a little late today. We had to run some elders to the mission office after they took their car in to the dent clinic and then we got here a little late and there are NO COMPUTERS, so I'm typing this all up on the phone and sending it on the computer after saving the draft.. Ain't that lame?? Whatevas though, it's basically like typing a big text message and we have iPhones so it's not really that bad ;) So this past week has been pretty chill I guess you could say. With transfers Coke another zone goal setting meeting/get to know you. That was a WAY cool meeting. We have some awesome leaders and the things we all talked about really kinda smacked you in the face like hey, stop doing good, and do better... SO DOPE!!! Also, not to mention, there are SO MANY young people in our zone!!! Seriously, I think close to half of the zone has been out for 6 months or less.. What the!! But eese all good, I'm just getting to be an old fart in the mission.... Speaking of which, on Wednesday, it will have been 14 months since the day I flew up to the MTC...... WHERE IS THE TIME GOING??? Ok, on a less depressing note, we taught the Rojas family again!! We only taught brother Rojas though since sis. Rojas was busy tending to other guests. But we talked about the temple, and we told him how we want to set a goal for him and his wife to start trying to prepare themselves to be able to be sealed in the temple as a family, and he liked that idea :) Also, we went by Abdula, but didn't get a chance to really teach him anything, so we left the first three pamphlets for our lessons that we teach and asked the mom who lives there if she could give them to him and she said she would. Well, come Sunday and we talk to the sisters who work in that ward and they told us that apparently he's been reading the pamphlets and and told the mom that it makes his heart feel warm, and kinda did it by putting his hand over his chest and being like "oohhh, that feels good" or something like that.. Haha! He ALSO apparently asked her son to teach him how to play the piano (it's against Muslim law to play instruments or something like that) and the mom asked him about it and he's like "well, it's just like reading these pamphlets. Why should I stop there?" YEAH BUDDY!!!! So hopefully he actually like goes for it and DOESN'T stop there :) haha! This weekend was the stake conference for the Confederation park stake (the one the Spanish ward pertains to) and on the Saturday night adult session, is was ALL about missionary work, and one of the speakers was a girl who had just gotten baptized on FRIDAY!!! Can you imagine? Getting baptized and having to talk the day after in stake conference..? That'd be CRAY!! So with all dis cool stuff goin down, you guys want to hear an even CRAZIER story??? So yesterday we were walking down a street super close to where we live, and as w were walking, a car drove by... Nothing special, just an old dude driving. Well a couple seconds later, I heard what sounded like a tire blowing up, and we turned around and saw the car that JUST drove by us pushing another car down the street, and then hitting another car with that one. We ran down and it was that OLD MAN!!! He apparently had a stroke and just like looked off at nothing, hit the accelerator and smashed into the cars on the side of the street. The grandson in the car with him was unharmed, but the grandpa sounded like he was snoring and wasn't responding to anything. The ambulance came and took him off, and the cops who came said they don't think he'll survive... Isn't that crazy??? But some good came from it!! One of the cops on the scene was a member and I suspect he may be less-active, and just doesn't have the cleanest language... And we helped these people move in while we were waiting to receive the report to fill out, another lady invited us to have some herbal tea and warm up in her house, and the people we helped move in told us to come back by some time... That's so cool!! So as some old folks pass from this life to the next, they can somehow open up people's hearts and create an atmosphere of acceptance and love :) So that was our weeks. Meetings and car crashes. Quite an adventure I'd say :) I hope everyone is doing great and having fantastic missionary opportunities open up for them :) take care, and until next week!! Love, Elder Levi Windham

25 January 2016

HOLY COW that was a fast transfer!!!! seriously, this one has come and gone way faster than i was really ready for.. we were just talking yesterday about a dinner we had had earlier in the week when we realized wait, that wasn't earlier in the week. that was LAST SUNDAY... like what?? that was a week ago already?? i don't know where this time has gone and it's kinda scary. well, this week was a good one. we FINALLY set up an appointment with Tatiana and Juan!! We'll be meeting with them this Friday. we haven't set an exact time yet, but she told us Friday would be good for them :) we tried to set one up with Maricel, but she is still kinda putting it off and putting it off, so maybe we'll keep trying with her..? not sure, but we'll find out soon hopefully!! also, we went on exchanges on thursday, and we went by a member from an english ward who said she had a mexican student living with her, and we get there and it's just her and her son. well after a couple minutes, Abdula comes in!! he's from... somewhere that's Muslim, and she introduced us to him a bit, and we just kinda started talking to him. well, he started asking us a couple questions like "what makes you happy?" and just not too probing sort of questions. but he said he's been to like 100 something different countries, and everywhere he goes, he asks them what they like and what makes them happy about their church, etc., and he likes learning about other religions and stuff, and he wants to learn more about ours. So we told sister wight (that's the member he lives with) that we should maybe try and have the sisters come and teach him since he doesn't speak spanish and he lives within their boundaries, but she said how he is muslim, and the muslim religion doesn't think too highly of women, so she wants us to come back and teach him... So we have a muslim investigator!! haha! so, i have a HILARIOUS (well, i think it is) story to tell... haha! so there is a member, her name done be Lulu. She has some friends who will come over sometimes while we are there and they're non-members (not to mention these people be like straight from mexico haha). Well they have a daughter who is like 14 or 15 years old (stinkin young), and at some point, Lulu had moved the conversation to the fact that sometimes missionaries will fall in love with another missionary and won't tell them until after their mission, and then they'll start dating and get married, or they'll fall in love with a member in their ward and do the same thing. well, the daughter was there during the whole conversation, and when it came time to leave, we were giving handshakes to everyone and stuff and about to head ut the door, when that daughter came up to me because i missed giving her a handshake, and when she went to give me a handshake, there was a tiny little note in her hand that she tried to pass to me through the hand shake.... funny thing, it totally failed and fell on the ground and it was like "oops..." so i picked it up awkwardly and started walking down the hallway... awkwardly.. when we got to the elevator, i read the note and it had her phone number, her name, a little "shh" on the bottom, and a little thing in parenteses on the bottom corner that said "hablame cuando termines".......... WHAT THE??? so yes, that is my crazy experience this week with the latino peeps up here.. hahahaha welp, i love you fools, and i want to say that i know this church is true, and i love being on the mission more than anything else i could've possibly done. i know that i will never regret this choice so long as i live, and i couldn't have done it without the help of EVERYONE who reads this, because i know that in some way shape or form, you made it possible for me to be out here, and "i am eternally grateful" :) take care everyone, and i hope you have a fantastic week!! love, Elder Levi Windham p.s. the way transfers are now working is this " The Assistants will notify the Zone Leaders Tuesday night letting them know who will be transferred and everyone’s new companion and new area. Your Zone Leader will in turn call each one of you and let you know if you will be transferred and who your new companion will be and your new area. You will also be notified if your new companion is from the North or the South (this will help you know which meeting to attend). So, Tuesday night all missionaries will know who their companion will be and which area they will be serving. I ask you to please make no contact with anyone in the mission once you’ve been notified. This should happen anyway since we all know there never should be no contact with missionaries outside of your area." i'm too lazy to explain how it'll work, but what that basically means is you foos ain't gone find out what happened to me until next week... LOVE YA!!!

11 January 2016

Hola uno, hola todo!!! i'm pretty sure that isn't actually a phrase in spanish, but OH WELL!! How is everyone?? I'm personally doing pretty ight if i do say so myself. till looking, as the title says, but that's ok. One can still find happiness in slower times :) so, once again, all our investigators couldn't meet this week.. It's weird because like the lessons we have had have been super good lessons and they liked everything we talked about.. hmm well, idk! we'll just have to wait for a chance to meet again and see what the delio is :P i hope and pray that they actually want to keep going but are just busy!! howeva, besides our investigators, we have our AWESOME less-actives!!! We had an amazing lesson with them on Thursday after we had dinner with them :) all 3 companionships in the spanish ward went so it was pretty cool. They made some turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rice.. just a very good dinner :) it was El Dia de Reyes, which... has a story to it that would take several minutes to explain ;) haha! anyways, they wanted to have us all over on wednesday, but we wouldn't all be able to go, so they moved it to Thursday instead. HOLY COW that was stinkin good!!! it was the thanksgiving dinner that i didn't have on thanksgiving.. haha! but the lesson was GREAT!! We talked about temples and how eternal marriages and families work. He asked some deep questions and eventually it boiled down to "well, we don't know exactly how it's goin to work, but we trust and believe that God does, so we go forward hoping that in the eternities, everything will be figured out.." But it was AWESOME!! I think he really has a better idea of sealings and why it's important and so crucial to do :) not to mention he loves his kids and wife and future kid.. YEAH BUDDY!!!!! I love that guys a lot and they're such an awesome family :) so we tried to meet with the Munoz boys, but when we got there, they were all asleep except the 15 year old kid (who probably has the best chance of the other 2). But we just went in and talked with him for like 45 minutes or so and at the end, we decided we're gonna come back on friday and make some cookies with them :P haha! So we're pretty much just gonna stop trying to convince them of anything and just be their friends and set a good example :) that's just what some people need!! not a teacher, but a bud. and in this case, a teacher would pretty much be wasting his time :P however, to quote every Will Smith meme ever, "I ain't even mad." Besides that, this week had a lot of less-active stop bys trying to get addresses right, and of everyone who answered, they were all wrong addresses.. kind of a bummer, but we did get in one door, and they were way nice!! they asked us for our dinner calendar so they could sign up on it, so that's pretty dope :) but yeah, we've heard mixed reports about them, so we'll just see what really happens :) anywes, i hope everyone's been doing good, and i wish you all a great week with plenty of missionary opportunities!! Esta obra es mas importante que nada, y nunca van a encontrarse infeliz si aceptan la obra misional como parte de su vida :) basically just be great friends to everyone and you'll do your part!! there's even a talk about just being friends, and if that's all you do, then you'll find yourself being a greater member missionary than you ever imagined :) until next week! Love, Elder Levi Windham

4 January 2016

Hello one, hello ALL!!! We are now starting off a happy new year with.... NO NUMBERS!!! Yup, ya got it, we had just 2 less-active lessons this past week.. Thanks a LOT holidays!! haha! jk, i'm not really dying about this. It wasn't too surprising that we couldn't meet up with any of our investigators. Peeps have lives, unlike missionaries (lol), so you can't think about it too too much when they have to cancel :P BUT, we did have a pretty good lesson with both of our less-actives we've been teaching :) The first ones (and the one with the most desire) was AWESOME!!! We went in planning to teach the restoration, but that was not what he needed, and that became very apparent, very fast. Like somehow, the priesthood got mentioned, and he was just like "why can't women have the priesthood? it seems a little sexist, doesn't it?" so we went on to a long conversation about that trying to say how we each have our calling in this life, and it is generally the role of the women to care for and raise the children, and the man to work and provide for the family. Both must set examples for the children on how to follow and worship our father and heaven and follow the teachings of His Only Begotten, and raise the family together. For some reason, we were still having trouble getting him to understand it, even with his wife there backing us up and adding her own things too. Eventually, she went and Face timed her dad, who helped A LOT, and we answered all his questions and in the end, he accepted it all and understood that if nothing else, God just decided that it is that way, and we accept his judgment calls. It was a really good lesson and i left feeling even MORE love for him and proud of him for having such a desire to learn and understand more. Then yesterday, we had actually gone to en english ward to try and scope out the spanish peeps and meet just more people, and i gave my testimony in english.. haha! i for some reason just felt like i needed to bare my testimony, and lemme tell you, i had to choke back some stinkin tears.. haha! i talked about how the gospel can bring so much happiness to our lives and the lives of those we love, and i had seen such a great change within my family because of the gospel and i can see the difference between when someone actively has the gospel in their life, and when they aren't doing what they've been taught.. it was just super nice and kinda funny since i didn't know ANY of those people in that ward and i was totally trying not to cry in front of them... haha! oh well, i guess there was someone in there who needed to hear it :) Also, we taught our less-active teenagers, and i kinda threw down on them for not doing anything, and we can't keep taking our time to come and teach them if they aren't gonna do anything we tell them. I also explained that we don't want it to be a waste of time because we love them and want them to progress spiritually because we know that that's where they'll find true happiness and security in this life and the life to come, and they all said they'd read the book of mormon every day! i told them that we no longer care how much they read every day if they just read something every day.. like a verse or 2 at the least. So we'll follow up with them laterz and see what they've done since then :) anywes, the mission is just a roller coaster of annoyance, lack if desire, INCREASE of desire, spiritual progression and setbacks, searching and finding and searching for people with real intent, poaching, speaking better and worse spanish.... Just a roller coaster of everything really. haha! however, would i give it up because i get sick of it sometimes? HECK NO!!! Would i stop working completely because it's discouraging when people can't make up their minds? Naahhhh it's not worth it to stop. I know that if i (and all of us)endure those hard times and come out fighting, then we'll always be on top in the end and we'll be stronger than before, and we can look back and see where we were before and where we are now and say that we are a better person. I love you guys, and i hope you all have a GREAT new year!! take care y'all ;) Love, Elder Levi Windham