December 27, 2010 - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I have to tell you my ward here is wonderful. They filled our tiny little christmas tree with tons of gifts for us to open on Christmas. It ranged from candy to mouthwash (are they trying to tell us something?) from clothes to gift cards.  It was great.  I love this ward sooo much.  They have been wonderful to us. I hope you are enjoying this wonderful Christmas season.  I wish you all the best and thank you all for all that you do for me.  You all are awesome and the Lord is blessing you greatly for everything you do!  Keep it up and Merry Christmas! Have a prosperous, blessed new year and may God protect you in all things.  Love you all very much.

A hui hou,

Elder Watson

December 6, 2010 - Beautiful Baptism

Hey everybody!!!!

How are you all doing?  I hope your holiday seasons are going wonderfully!  The holidays are sooooooooo different in the mission!  Still good but different!  So this weekend was a great weekend as we were able to watch another of our investigators get baptized!  His name is Ryan Bubakar and his mom, who is also investigating the church was able to make it. For a while it looked like she wouldn't be able to come but she made it!  She was sooo touched by how many members had come to watch and support Ryan get baptized.  We had a wonderful short program for him and Elder Chandia and I provided the "entertainment".  OMGoodness you should have been there. So we found out recently that we sing very well together.  We decided to sing Be Still My Soul and In Humility Our Saviour.  We practiced and practiced and it sounded GREAT!!!  But when the time came we bombed.  I don't know what happened but we just couldn't get it on the right note.  It was too high, too low, we were on the wrong keys!  I don't know.  All I know it that I was laughing so hard and decided to bear my testimony instead.  Poor Elder Chandia was sooo embarrased he walked out of the room and didn't want to come back in!  I have been with this ward soo long I feel they are family and know that they are very forgiving so I wasn't embarrased at all.  Anyways, back on to the Bubakar's, the mom felt the spirit so strongly that baptism day and was able to meet many of the members and make some good friends.  Yesterday Ryan was confirmed and Sis. Bubakar decided to stay for the full three hours this time, (this being her second time to church).  She loved it!  She was welcomed into the ward as though she had been a member all her life and learned so much.  We asked if she was ready for her baptism on the 18th and she laughed and asked us, "Do you think I'm ready?"  We were like "Yeah!"  She goes, "Yeah, I'm ready!"  We were soooo elated. Anyway, we are excited to be ending the year with two maybe three baptisms.  We haven't been so good at finding lately so I think the next couple of months are going to be hard!  Teaching pool is small.  But we have great faith, elder chandia and I.  I know the Lord will bless us with the righteous desires of my heart.  Let me know how you all are doing.  Thank you for all your letters, love, and support!  Thank you for being so patient with my slow responses!  I love you all and hope all is well! Happy Holidays.  May God be with you!

Elder Watson!!!

November 29, 2010 - Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello Hello!

There is sooooo much to tell you. I'll start off first by telling you about my thanksgiving.  We had no set appointments the day of thanksgiving except for dinner which was at the Bishop family's house.  If you don't remember they are the new converts, the first family Elder McMaster and I baptized on My mission.  Actually he did the baptizing but you know what I mean.  So because we had no set appointments Elder Chandia and i decided to do some work!  We went OYMing (OYM stands for open your mouth)  in the parking lot of the Food Lion which is like a foodland for an hour.  No luck there.  Then we went knocking for another hour and boy were the people not happy to have us interrupt their wonderful thanksgiving get togethers!  They weren't mean but they weren't happy. hehe  And then we OYMed again at another Food Lion close to where our dinner appointment was.  Finally it was time for our dinner appointment which took a while to put together, so we spent a lot of time just smelling all the deliciousness and dying of hunger! lol....But then we ate and it was sooooooooo delicious.  What did we eat you ask?  I have no idea but it was good.  I took some pictures and will send you some in the mail.  She had more dishes than I could remember and each was satisfying. We had planned to leave straight after dinner so we could find some people to teach but ended up staying the rest of the night with them.  They were struggling as new converts and we had many great conversations on problems they had come in contact with since being baptized.  It's sad sometime to see small things get in the way of someones growing testimony, but when a testimony in only in its beginning stages it can be easily destroyed.  So all in all our thanksgiving was wonderful.  But even with a wonderful thanksgiving I couldn't help imagine what it was that you all were eating!  I bet you guys had a wonderful thanksgiving feast as well!

These past few days were quite exhausting.  We have been helping people move in and out of the ward and have been doing service for less active members for the past three days.  To top it off we, ourselves, moved today.  We are still not finished moving and cleaning three years of left overs from elders past but we just had to take a break and write to you, our families.  Plus Elder Chandia was pouting all day cuz he hates moving (I think cleaning for that matter ;) ) and all he wanted to do was leave and email.  So finally, after watching him mope for hours I decided to give in!  LoL...I'm only kidding.  We have been working hard on leaving the Lewis' home as clean as possible.  We love them so much.  For the last 6 months they have been so awesome to us.  They have been housing missionaries for three years going on four and were sad to hear that we had to leave.  In fact, we asked sister Lewis to come down and help us figure out which is missionary stuff and which might be her stuff.  She kept saying she would come down and never did.  Finally she came down today and just broke down crying.  She felt like she was losing her son's.  She couldn't go through each thing without telling us the story behind it.  I'm really going to miss living in their house.  I dont think there will be any place better on the mission. And I am going to miss Brother and Sister Lewis.  It won't be the same just seeing them once a week as church.  hmmmmm.....sad.

On another, hopefully lighter note, I found out today that I'm staying in Mt. Airy for one more transfer which is another 6 weeks.  I've been pestering Elder Chandia soooo much he cried when he heard I was staying! LoL....only kidding again.  We work very very well together and I can't wait to baptized more and more people.  This transfer is going to be great!  I'm pretty sure that this will be my last transfer here with I wont mind at all.  Mt. Airy has become my home away from home, and if I can't spend the Holidays at home with my Family and friends then I'd rather spend it here with my ward family!  

Well that is all for now.  If you get a chance send some to me from the holidays or of anything.  I miss you all and love you with all my heart.  May God be with you till we meet again!

A hui hou,

Elder Watson!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

November 15, 2010 - I love My Mission!

Aloha family!!! 

So Heavenly Father is greatly blessing us in Mt Airy Maryland and I hope he is blessing you wherever you may be!!! Last night we had a simple but great experience.  We have been teaching Ryan Bubakar for a while now and really have been wanting to get his single mom involved as well.  We asked him to share what we have taught him to his mom and when he would attend church to share what he felt and learned at church.  Everytime we'd meet he would say that he didn't get a chance to talk to her.   Then we put him on date and told him he really really needed to talk to her about getting baptized because she has to give her permission in order for him to be baptized.  (note: She is a hard woman to get a hold of because she works two jobs as a nurse and whenever we catch her at home she's always asleep!)  So a week after setting a date he still hadn't told her, we were admonished by our Zone leaders to talk to her or else he can't be counted as "on date".  So we set an appointment with Ryan to meet with him and his mom on Sunday, last night, at his house.  We were running a bit late so we called to let them know and Ryan tried to reschedule.  We ask to talk to his mom and found out that he forgot to tell her and she was getting ready for bed.  But she's so sweet and nice that she told us to hold on for a few minutes, she would get changed and we could come in.  Long story short, we asked if she had questions; she wanted to know what exactly was being taught; we taught the first lesson; she thought it to make sense and wanted to learn more.  We told her that we set a date for Ryan to be baptized the 27th of this month and asked for her permission.  She looked at him and said, "Is that what you want?"  He said yep.  She said "Okay! If he wants to then that's fine."  She told us she'd seen missionaries before and noticed how young we were.  She saw the great work we did and how it kept young boys out of trouble.  She expressed how what she sees in us is what she wants for her son so she is totally fine with us teaching him and him getting baptized.  It was a wonderful, spirit filled lesson with the Bubakar family and I fully believe that as we continue to meet with them they will want to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the priesthood authority of God and then work toward being a forever family!

I'm doing very well here and I can't wait to go back out and bring more of our brothers and sisters to the knowledge of the blessing the restored gospel can bring to each person's life!  This is a wonderful work and I encourage you to take part.  But in order to do so you have to know what it is you are taking part in so continue, if you haven't already, to search the scriptures and build your knowledge and testimony of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Visit and invite other to visit mormon.org.  I miss you all and hope you are doing well.  I'll talke to you all soon.  Aloha nui loa!

Elder Watson

November 8, 2010

Hello Everybody!

I am doing just fine.  Nothing too exciting from last week but the work is going very well.   We have been working really really hard and seeing things pick up which I'm excited about.  We are constantly finding new ways to keep the work progressing.  We currently have two people on date, on for the 24th of November, Ryan Bubaker, and another for the 4th of December, Danielle Cohen.  We are very excited and are hoping we can keep them going strong.  Already the adversary is working hard to keep them from keeping their commitments but our faith is strong and we will not let him win.  I hope all is well with you all. I miss you all and talk to you again soon!!!!

Elder Watson

November 1, 2010

Hey !!!

 How are you!! Just to let you know, I have been doing very well.  Extremely busy and just a bit stressed.  You know how I do.  But you know, I think I'm doing alot better at handling the stressful things. It doesn't get me down or discouraged.  Just makes me try to figure out how I can make things a lot easier and definitely helps me to rely more on the Lord!  I feel like I never have time to rest anymore.  Im constantly thinking on how I can help, improve, better, myself, my trainee, and my district.  But it's fun.  I love the opportunities I have been given and am learning alot.  I do have time to miss you all.   I love you all.  Talk to you laters!

Elder Watson

Meeting Elder Chandia

Monday, October 25, 2010

Hi everybody!!

I'm doing well and so is Elder Chandia. He is a great missionary and I feel I have to do little training with him. He's good with teaching and following the spirit and has a very likable personality so he gets along well with the members of the church and our investigators that we currently are teaching. It makes it a whole lot easier as a district leader as well. We just now need to make our area the example for the rest of our district to follow. Currently we are a pretty bad example. But I feel good things coming up in the future for us.

We are working really hard with this investigator, Jose Deleon, and feel that he will progress quickly towards baptism. We meet with him more than once a week and he keeps all the commitments we give him. He's such a wonderful kid, I just hope his parents allow him to get baptized. They don't have too much of a like for us. They aren't mean but they've had bad experiences with Mormon missionaries in the past. We are also working with another young boy who is very interested in religion. Only 14 and very good at recognizing the spirit. He and his sister, who's only 7, have been meeting with us. Their mother is a single parent and works all day but is fine and comfortable with us teaching them. We hope to get the mom involved soon. That would help so much in their conversion.

We are desperately trying to get the members involved once again but because of the holidays coming up things are so hectic. Surprisingly I haven't been too stressed as I anticipated I would be. I feel strongly that the Lord is preparing ways for us to accomplish the goals we have set for ourselves and as a mission. I so very much love being a missionary and feel that I have grown so much in the past 5 months. I can't wait to see what else is in store for me and the people of Maryland. I hope you are all doing great! I love you all and miss you but I know that the Lord is watching over each of you. Please be alert to his promptings and guidance. I know that God loves each of us and wants us to be happy but we can't achieve that happiness if we aren't listening what he's trying to tell us. Once again I love you all. Take great care and God bless.

Elder Watson