Thirty-third Week - September 7, 2014

Hey, everyone!! 

I hope you all had a great week!  I am thrilled to have the opportunity to write to you this week! 

First of all, I want to give a huge shout out to Drew Phillips!  While visiting here in Sydney, he was kind enough to surprise and visit me in the ward I am serving!  It was great to see him and spend time catching up in regards to life back in the Danville area.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to see him and to get to talk!  It truly was one of the highlights of my day!! Thank you for coming!

In addition, in church one of our recent converts was able to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood!  It was truly a special moment as I was able to reflect on the journey he has gone through.  I was able to be a part of a select few who laid their hands on his head.  In moments like those, I am so humbled and grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord and the children to whom he has entrusted both my companion and me.  We also were able to have our investigator, Jason, stand up, at the beginning of sacrament, as his baptism was announced for next Saturday.  We are excited for his choice to be baptized, and he is even more excited! 

Today marks the start of a new transfer and as such we were able to receive our transfer news last week.  Elder Lee and I have been blessed as we were told that we would not be transferred but would remain in our area!  Furthermore, we were called by our mission president and asked to train an incoming Elder from the USA.  As many of you know, I spent the first three months of my mission with two other elders, and now I will once again be put into a trio companionship.  While it may be difficult, Elder Lee and I know the blessings that can come of it.  I know that we will make the most out of this experience and continue to see miracles in this great and marvelous work! 

With all of that being said, Elder Poole is the only missionary in our district that is being transferred.  I had the wonderful opportunity to serve around and with Elder Poole on many occasions.  He is a great Elder, and I know that I will see him soon!  He will continue to do great things where ever he goes and will continue in the diligent service of the Lord!  Before he left, we were able to take a couple pictures of the four of us.  I have attached a couple! Also, on an unrelated side note, the dog's name in the picture is Frank.  As we aren't allowed to have real pets, we figured that this would be close enough.  We found Frank stranded on the side of the road with no family or friends and decided to take him home and make him our own.

 

 

To conclude my letter for this week I would like to talk about familysearch.org   This week I was able to go on for an hour and spend time getting to know the site better so that I could in turn help someone do their own family history.  While I was looking around at my own family history, I was curious to know how much had actually been done and how far back I could go.  I started to click and kept clicking.  Each time I hit an end, I went back and found a new way to go back further.  Well, after some persistence, I was able to trace my whole line back to Adam and Eve.   At that point I could do one more click and I saw that the next name was Heavenly Father. 

 

I know we always say we come from Adam and Eve and that we are children of our Heavenly Father; however, to physically see it on a map in front of you is something pretty special.  I came to a deep gratitude for family history work.  I invite everyone to go to their own genealogical lines and see what work needs to be done so that you, too, can have this same feeling.  I can promise you that is not something you want to miss out on. 

Well, I love you all so much!  Hope you have a great week!  Talk to you soon!! 

Love,

Elder Wilde 

P.S  (The first Sunday in September is Fathers' Day in Australia, so Elder Wilde sent this message to his dad.)