Hi y'all!!

I had a very interesting week this past week. Yesterday, I received some very exciting news from Sister Mackliet in Pocahontas. She said that Linda is going to be married and Baptized on May 30th. I am so excited for her! I am so grateful she is making this step in her life. I know that it will be such a blessing to her.

I am really excited about the area here. Ever since I have been here it has felt like something wasn't right. Yesterday, I was finally able to figure it out. I learned that the trust between the missionaries and members has been broken previously. So we are going to be working on building the trust back between the members and us. I also learned yesterday in Branch council that New and Returning Member forms are not being used. Just because the Branch members don't know how to use them. I am glad that I was able to figure these things out. So we know what we need to improve, and work on. Things with Darius are really coming along he is progressing towards his Baptism Date of June 7th! We went through the Baptismal Interview Questions and really hit Chastity and Word of Wisdom. What's neat is that he is 100% into changing his life. He is ready to keep all of God's commandments. The only problem we have had is that he wouldn't let us get him a ride to church yesterday....

We had an interesting experience with Vicky Green this week. We had met her husband; Charles previously and went back to talk with him. He didn't want to talk with us because he hadn't read the Book of Mormon like we had invited him to do. So instead, he introduced us to his wife; Vicky. We taught her the Restoration, and really had a great lesson with her. She is very prepared, and just ate up the fact that she could go to lds.org to hear what President Monson has said recently.

Sister Ives and I are doing great! We are working together well, and things are really coming along.

Yesterday we had an interesting experience with being bashed. Two women really persecuted the Book of Mormon. They proceeded to say that we weren't allowed to pray with them because we are "sinners". All because we believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. I am just grateful for the knowledge that I have that The Book of Mormon truly was written by prophets. Also, that I have come to know through prayer that The Book of Mormon truly is the Word of God.

I learned a lot from the meeting with Elder Kapishka and Elder Meredith this past week. I really liked when Elder Kapishka said that "There is no Failure in Missionary Work." That really hit home to me. I liked how they both stressed that it's through "failing" that we learn and grow. Without trial and error there wouldn't be success. Just like Nephi took 3 attempts to get the plates. It took error in order for him to finally figure out what he needed to do to receive the plates.

Something that also stuck out to me was how we can follow the spirit. Elder Kapishka mentioned that "our thoughts are often the thoughts of our heavenly parents." This helped me to realize that we need to act on all of our "good thoughts" since they are directly coming from God. My prayer is that we all can follow the spirit more closely.

Love y'all!

-Sister W. Williams