Short Sleeves

Hi everyone!

A good week but also a little disappointing because we lost 5 investigators. People just being unwilling to read or change or anything. Very sad, especially because they seem very sincere and excited during our lessons, but that's another story. 

We've been meeting with so many inactives lately and it's been a great experience challenging them to come back and make commitments. They don't usually follow through with their commitments but it's a work in progress and we have small victories every day. We have lunch with a 92 year old woman every other Thursday at a nursing home and she is the sweetest lady, she just drinks coffee every lunch and she's pretty blind too. She is so funny though and the other people there love seeing us when we come by and the place is super nice so the lunch is always good too haha. 

We've been enjoying the beautiful Colorado weather the last week, its been in the 50s and 60s and we've been able to wear short sleeves and then we just put on sweaters after dinner. Never thought that I'd ever think that 50 degrees was warm, but it sure feels like it now! 

The ward here is pretty awesome and they feed us every night, and it is so awesome being able to see all the different kinds of families, one night we'll be with a young couple with a couple kids and the next we'll be with Bro. Soderland whose wife passed away a couple years ago and he lives alone but he is hilarious too. 

We've been seeing some success, especially with Olesya (the Russian lady) because she comes to church every week and she is ready to accept everything and get baptized. 

All right well, I guess that is it for the week. We've got a bunch of new elders in the zone because transfers were last week, and there are two new new elders straight from the MTC in our district, one of whom is 18. An exciting time to be a missionary for sure. 

I love you all! Keep the faith!

Elder Wardle

Livin' It Up in Lakewood!

Well, we just finished up week 6 here in Lakewood and we got transfer calls a couple days ago and my companion and I are both staying in this area for the next transfer. 

I got a letter from Church Headquarters saying they are still working on my visa, but they don't know when I'll get it. But that's all right with me because we've got a lot of work to do here in the Dartmouth ward. We have been meeting with a lot of new investigators lately and we have a few people that are progressing, so that's been quite wonderful. 

The families in this ward are sweet. There are a lot of apartments in the area and so there are a lot of young couples moving in and out with little crazy kids all over who are hilarious. We were at dinner the other night and this six year old kid named Stephen read a chapter in the Book of Mormon with us and then asked us what happened in the whole chapter because he hadn't been paying attention. Then he goes, "I just don't understand....the words of the Gospel." We were laughing for quite a while. 

We were super busy this week, which has been great, but not really anything in particular, just missionary work! I love you all, hope you're doing well.

Love,

Elder Wardle

Experiencing Snow on a Bike!

I've Fallen In Love With a Scarf!

Family and Friends,

We had a very eventful week and it was extremely cold this weekend here in Denver. Mom sent me a scarf that basically saved my life as the temperature was around 0 degrees this weekend and the only things that I didn't have covered while we were biking were my eyes. When I took this scarf out of the box, it looked huge and too big, but I'm in love with it now, it wraps up around my face and then down into my jacket, it was quite wonderful :)

Anyways, we had some fun experiences this week. We met with Carlos and his family again (the ones who said they wanted to stick with being Catholic) and they were pretty interested and they came to church yesterday! That was quite the turn around for them, and they are just the nicest family ever. 

The Broncos lost on Saturday, so we've had some fall-out from that.  Everyone keeps telling us about it and letting us know how disappointed they are haha. Also, during the game we stopped by a former investigator's house and he let us in while basically his whole family, including extended family, watched the game while he fed us pizza. Then they tried setting us up with his cousin and younger sister, asking us if we could date and that kind of thing, it was pretty funny. We left and the streets were dead because everyone was watching the game in their homes.

That's basically it. We've been doing good and it's kind of weird how happy I am even though I'm just biking all day in the cold and not meeting with too many people. I'm just very happy, so that's a testament to the work, verdad? I love you all and will talk to you next week! Hasta luego

Elder Wardle

The Work Continues.....

Hello!

We've had a great week and been able to meet with a lot of people. One family that we taught this week was the Perssons, and he is a less active that hasn't been to church in years and his wife isn't a member but has taken the lessons before. She is actually from Russia and her parents are too, and her parents were in town for the holidays and they didn't speak a word of English, so they just sat in the other room. 

Olesya is super into everything though and feels like she is ready this time, so hopefully this leads to something. Carlos and his family, who were on date last week, told us they want to stick with their religion so thanks but no thanks. We're still welcome over there so we are going to try to get back over there, I just know that they would be awesome members and they need the Gospel in their lives! It is a little frustrating to see people not make the right decisions when we know how much it can bless their lives.

I read Alma 29 this week and I could relate to his feelings a lot, because he wishes that he was an angel so that he could proclaim the Gospel with a loud voice and almost force people to repent and do what is right, but that was Satan's plan. Man's will is so important to God so we have to respect it too. Sometimes I just want to kick people because they don't do what they know to be true, so it is so important that we stay true to what we know. 

Elder Bednar said that having a testimony is knowing something to be true and being converted is being true to what we know. So many people have testimonies but they don't live right, so don't do that! Just something I've been thinking about lately. Keep the faith. 

Congratulations to Ben and Whitney on expecting! That's super exciting. And I am also very excited for Hudson's "Jesus Kit" haha. I guess that is it. Love you all!

Elder Wardle