May 2, 2011

Hey everyone!  Just wanted to say hello!  It's finally nice and beautiful out here. I wish I had pictures to show you all how beautiful it gets in the spring.  I am loving the weather and loving that I can wear short sleeves again. I was just thinking the other day how crazy it was that I'm finishing up my final season making it a full year out on my mission.  At first, to think about another year, it seems like a long time.  But looking back on this last year it went by in the blink of an eye.  I look forward to another year of challenges and blessings.  It's makes life sooooo much like a roller coaster ride. All you wanna do it get off this crazy ride and then you look back and want to do it all over again. crazy.

 

So guess what, yesterday the investigator, Corrine Stanely, got baptized.  I didn't get to baptize her or see her baptism but it's all good. I was soooooo excited to hear she is finally baptized.  A woman, who at the first meeting seemed to have no potential and totally not ready for the gospel,  but, when you add diligence, godly love, and use spiritual eyes, you see their true potential and help them get to where they need to be.  I am going to see if we can visit her sometime today and if so I think I might break rules and give her a hug!!! hehe.  I'll take a picture with her and send it to you all! 

 

We'll how is everyone doing??  I hope you have been doing awsome and if not keep your head up. The Lord is watching and standing next to you with his arms outstretched.  Grab hold and let him lift you up.  And once you're up you see how much you've grown. I love you all and miss you so much but I'll be home soon.  Take great care and I will talk to you all laters!!  Love you!

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Elder Jesse-James K. F. Watson

Meeting an Apostle of the Lord - Apr 18, 2011

This week went pretty well. We had the opportunity to see and meet Elder Andersen, one of the twelve apostles, at stake conference.  He grabbed my left shoulder as he talked with a few of us missionaires.  Everyone wanted the jacket I was wearing! lol....so crazy.  It was a wonderful meeting and we invited a few of our less actives we had met this past week and all of them came!! I was soooo excited.  It was everything they needed to hear and I needed to hear a few things myself!  I am so grateful that we have prophets and apostles today just like during the time Christ lived on the earth. I'm grateful for their love and service in helping us and guiding us back to our Father in Heaven again. 

Other than that I'm just trying my best to do all I can to help others come unto Christ by helping recieve the restored gospel.  I'm enjoying my time as a district leader even though times get real tough. But I know that I can always rely on the Lord to help me through those rough times.  After each challenge that comes my way I am made stronger in faith and I feel myself grow.  I guess i can only expect it to get harder and harder.  And as I continue to put my faith in Christ and God and follow the promptings of the spirit, I will be able to overcome each challenge and come out stronger than before.  I love this gospel and know that it is true.  I love you all and I can't wait to hear from you all again. 

Elder Watson

Neil L Andersen's Bio

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Elder Jesse-James K. F. Watson

Apr 11, 2011

Hey all!  So I now have my new companion, Elder Wong, from Irvine, CA.  He is actually in my lineage!  Elder Forbush trained Elder Wong and Elder Mcmaster (who is my trainer). So in the mission he would be my "uncle".  How funny is that.  He has a fire for the work and the area and he is ready to make things happen in the city!  I surely do miss Elder Savage but know that he is where he needs to be. 

 

Elder Wong and I have had some great experiences talking with people on the street. Almost everywhere we planned to tract, the moment we stepped out of the car someone was ready and willing to talk with us.  Now as for meeting with us again.....that's a different story. ;)  But still, it was awesome to have that happen. It really boosts my spirits and helps my faith to remain strong. 

 

So how is everything going with each of you!  Please tell. Please send some uplifting and encouraging letters from time to time.  Sometimes the work gets a bit difficult and in the city with so many things going on, my mind gets cloudy once in a while.  But for the most part I am doing well and enjoying the work. I must say that President Belliston is awesome and so are the leaders of the church. 

 

I love you all and hope you are in the best of health.  Take care and keep in touch!  Aloha!

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Elder Jesse-James K. F. Watson

Apr 4, 2011

Aloha! 

 

Well I loved Elder Andersons talk. I loved all of general conference. I always do.  It's been pretty difficult here in this area but difficulties are part of life.  Just gotta handle them the way Christ would like us to handle them.  I will try to send some pictures or put them on a cd but I really don't have much money.  In the city every penny goes to food.  We don't get fed much out here but it's because everyone is already so much in debt for school. I wouldn't expect them to feed us and we are greatly appreciative when someone does.  We live like a true baltimorian...poor! LoL...We live in an empty two bedroom, one bath, kitchen, dining and living room apartment.  Everything we own is in the master bedroom which consists of our clothes, two beds, two tables (as our desks) and two folding chairs.  I love it!  It's so easy to clean up after ourselves and everything is just simple!  Missionary life is really the life.  I wish I could do it forever. But there are more missions we can look forward to after the mission.  I doubt it's as easy as this one.  Well, everything is fine with me.  Keep me updated on how things are going with you guys.  Give my love to all you see.  I'll talk with you again soon!

 

Aloha oe,

Elder Jesse-James Watson

Apr 4, 2011

Another transfer has come and gone.  Time is just flying by.  We found out today that my trainee and companion, Elder Savage, is leaving the Baltimore Young Single Adults area coming this weds.  Sadness.  We got along well and felt that we worked together well as well. hehe.  But I'm sure he's off to bigger and better things in the mission and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to serve with him.  Finally someone more my age and as mature as Elder McMaster! and now on to another companion.  I'm pretty nervous about who my next companion is going to be.  But whom ever it is I'm sure the Lord wants him here and that he will have a lot to offer Baltimore.  I will give you more information next week monday!  As for this week, we really struggled to find people who are ready as well as keep those we were teaching.  Pretty much all of our investigators decided to discontinue taking lessons.  After having such a wonderful spiritually uplifting week with a suprise zone conference, ward conference, and general conference, I wasn't expecting that to happen.  But everything is for a reason.  I'm just going to continue putting our trust in the Lord and allow him to lead to me to do his will in this area.  I love this people here in Baltimore even though they are a bit hard-hearted.  But notwithstanding their hardness I shall continue to labor with all my might that their blood may not come upon my head!  Fun!  Blood on my head....not at all what I want! hehe.  Well, I hope you are all doing well.  Remember the talks given at General conference and if you haven't had chance to hear them please do so asap.  Everything that was talked about is exactly what we will need to fight the upcoming trials ahead of us! I love you all. I know that God lives and that he loves us.  I know that he has called a prophet to guide us and lead us today and that Thomas S Monson is that prophet.  I know that the if we follow the commandment of God and heed his words and warning we shall be safe both spiritually and physically and we can know and be assured that we shall be with our Father in Heaven again!  I love you and take care!

 

http://lds.org/?lang=eng

Elder Jesse-James K. F. Watson

Mar 7, 2011

So this week was a very awesome week.  I was able to attend another Leadership Training meeting.  You know how I love those things!  They changed it up this time and improved it by getting us involved in the teaching.  I hate to be put on the spot but it wasn't as bad as I thought.  I really enjoyed it, plus the spirit is always soooo strong there.  Also, we were able to teach Clark Valerie, our first investigator in the Baltimore Singles area and he's progressing nicely.  In fact he was able to introduce one of his friends, Jason Headrick, who is now our new investigator.  Clark hasn't come to the full knowledge that what we are teaching him are true but has felt the spirit everytime we've met with him and feels that others should hear it.  In turn, he is inviting all of his friends to come and meet with us with him.  What a great missionary and experience we are all having.  That's why I love the gospel. 

 

I believe I mentioned to you about another person we met, Corrine Stanely.  I may or may not have mentioned about her.  Anyway, she is a 60 year old woman that we meet over a month ago knocking on doors.  She allowed us to come in and has some reservations when we talked about Christ's Church being restored on the earth again.  She is an avid Bible reader, not a scholar, but loves to hear the "word" and apply it in her life as much as possible.  She has wonderful relationship with our Father in Heaven and has reached a point where she can easily identify the spirit.  Because of that it was easy for her to feel the truth of our message.  We gave her a pamphlet to read about the restoration.  After reading it a few times she felt the spirit confirm that what we had was something she needed.  We met with her once after that where she told us of her spiritual experience from reading the Restoration Pamphlet and asked us how she could get a copy of the "mormon bible".  Needless to say she was ecstatic to receive a free copy from us.  She's been reading it every night since she's gotten it. 

 

Then this sunday she woke up and called us to find our what time our services started. We told her and eagerly waited to see if she was really going to show up.  She faced some challenges on the way to church, namely her family and friends telling her she needs to stay away from the mormon cult, and other things that kind of frightened her.  But she prayed and asked God and her answer was that she won't know until she show's up to church.  She came and Everything taught answered every question she had.  She said she knows now that this is Christ church! Amazing!  It has been a wonderful experience meeting with her and going through these miraculous experiences.  Unfortunately we are not her missionaries so she is officially handed over to her missionaries.  I'm going to miss her a lot but as long as she is set on the right path I know I shall see her again! 

 

More great things are going to be coming and I can feel it!  I hope you are all doing well.  I love you and I will talk to you all next week!

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Elder Jesse-James K. F. Watson

Feb 22, 2011

My goodness! This past week has been a crazy week for me.  We've had so many blessings.

Here's what happened! First, we were going through the former investigators again two weeks ago and Helen Hendricks popped into our head again.  She was met and not really taught anything and then could never be contacted again. We too have tried a few times and wasn't successful.  Well, as we were planning two weeks ago we decided to put her as a back up if our appointment with a member fell through. Our appointment didn't fall through but we decided to try by her anyway and if she was home and let us in we would have the member already. She was home! But she was busy so we made an appointment with her for this  last week.  She kept her appointment and has soooo many questions.  We focused on two principles: God is our Loving Heavenly Father and The Holy Ghost.  Testimony was given as we taught and the spirit was soooo strong.  After bearing testimony of the spirit she immediately asked where our church was and the time.  She commited to come and was very excited about it!  She didn't come to church though. We are seeing her again tomorrow.

The second blessing that was given to us was this 40 year old man named Coleman.  We were knocking on doors and was finished with the block and on our way back to the car we passed Coleman. We stopped him and briefly shared our message of the restoration.  We gave him a book of mormon and asked for his number and a time when we could meet again.  He took the Book of Mormon and gave us his number and asked us to call him.  We called and met with him. In the beginning our our lesson we used the 10 teaching points, specifically, "We will be guides..." one of course saying in our own words as the spirit directed.  He told us after how he had been praying for some guidance in his life and now we were here telling him that we would be his guides.  It was pretty amazing even though we aren't going to be teaching him.

But all that is not as amazing as our last blessing for the week!  Corrine, older woman, Elder Hale and I knocked on her door while we were on exchanges.  She kindly let us in and we told her we were in her neighborhood sharing a message centered on Jesus Christ.  She asked us to share that message for she loved hearing the word.  We started to talk about Christ church when he was on the earth and how it's on the earth today and she responded very negatively to it.  She didn't believe in the need to go to a church. She felt that all she needed was to read the word and live it.  We decided to leave her with a Restoration pamphlet and see if we could set up another appointment to talk more about the pamphlet.  She took the pamphlet and agreed to meet with us again.  When we went back at the time we set she wasn't home, nor was she home the next few times we tried to visit.  I decided to try one more time and we were in luck!  She rushed down the stairs invited us in and began to tell us of her remarkable experience.  She said she read the pamphlet after we left the first time we met.  While reading she felt a warm feeling just overwhelm her whole body.  She said she felt the spirit so strongly that she decided to read it a few more times and each time felt the same feeling.  She decided to say a prayer and asked God that if we indeed came back at the time appointed she would take that as a sign that we  were "angels sent from God".  Of course she wasn't able to be there at that time but her cousin was there to answer the door when we came and tell her that we came.  She was sooo excited it even scared her.  She said she needed to learn more so she went on the internet (not our website, scary) and looked up Joseph Smith. After reading all about him she testified how she knew he was a true prophet of God.  She was sooo excited she began to tell everyone.  She was met with negative remarks from family, friends, and strangers.  But she said she knew it was true and God told it was true.  She said she wanted to join our church and come to a service as soon as she can!  That was indeed crazy! I told Elder Hale of the crazy experience and he had the Loch Raven Elders take over her teaching. Currently they haven't been able to get in and teach her again but I really feel she is Solid! 

That has been our wonderful week. Now we need to have experiences like that with young single adults!

The past few days has been very warm and I have been sooooo grateful for it. And then last night, when the weather man predicted it was to only rain, it snowed like crazy!  The next few days is supposed to get colder and colder. I thought spring had finally arrived. Syke!  Oh well....  Back to layers again. hehe  Anyway.....

Thank you for all your love, letters, thoughts, and prayers.  The Lord is blessing us and keeping us safe and its partly due to you. Thank you!  I miss all of you and hope you are doing well.  I'll talk to you all again next week!  Bye Bye for now.

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Elder Jesse-James K. F. Watson