Happy Thanksgiving! (Week 62)

Elder Taunteang is in Kiribati and Elder Matthew is now in Ponca.

This week has been crazy, but good. Tuesday us and the Blackwell Elders left to Moore to drop off Elder Taunteang at the mission office and then stayed in Moore and did splits with the Moore 2nd and the Zone Leaders. It was nice to see missionaries from my last zone and to spend the day serving with Elder Park and Elder Davis. After spending the night we had transfers in the morning, and I got to see old friends, companions and leaders.

My new companion is Elder Matthews from Spanish Fork Utah. He is a fairly new missionary who just got done with his training. He is awesome and we get along great. We are learning a lot from each other (in a positive way).

This week we have been going through our ward roster and meeting all of our less-active members, and building relationships with them. We are finding a lot of part member families and we are going to start teaching a few soon.

Bad news C~ is in Jail... But from what we have heard is that he shouldn't be there long. We don't really know what happened but we are hoping that we can get a hold of him soon.

A lot of our investigators are struggling right now so keep them in your prayers. We are starting to do a lot of finding through tracting, street contacting, and visiting former investigators. So far we have found a few but we hope to fill up our teaching pool by the end of the week.

Since It's Thanksgiving I thought I would write a quick list of some of the things I'm grateful for.

I am grateful for:
My Family and their love
My friends and their support
My mission and the experiences I've had
The Atonement of Jesus Christ
The Restoration of the Gospel
My health and strength
My weaknesses that make me stronger

The librarian that cuts our time short... (yeah...)

Well I love you guys and I'm grateful for all of the blessing this gospel gives. The book is blue! The church is true!

Sincerely, Elder Watkins

Time is Too Fast (Week 61)

Wow, it feels like just last week that I arrived here in Ponca City and now the transfer is over and Elder T is leaving tomorrow to his homeland. I've learned so much from him and I'm so happy I was blessed to serve with him for 5 weeks

Tomorrow Elder T leaves to OKC and because he leaves before the actual transfer on Wednesday I will be going on splits with one of the elders in the city for a day. I will get my new companion on Wednesday, his name is Elder Matthews. I don't know anything about him except that he just got done being trained. I'm excited to serve with a newer missionary. He had a good trainer so I'm not too worried.

Things are going well in Ponca City. We just got our first big snow storm and the roads are pretty icy. Our side of town has a big network of culverts, and they provide us with quick ways of cutting around town. We have been trying to think of even quicker ways of getting around since we can't really ride our bikes on ice. So we might just start rounding up the stray dogs in town and use the culverts for a bob sled track.

Two birds. One stone. Dead.

This week has been interesting because Elder T has preparing to depart Oklahoma, and it seems like all of Ponca City has the Flu/Cold. Almost all of our investigators have been sick with something or other, but that hasn't stopped us from finding people to teach. This week we have found a new less-active family that we didn't know about. One of them (the Cb~ family) has been less active for quite some time so we are going to start teaching them the discussions to help them find the answers to their current questions.

We set a baptism date for Calvin for January 8th. He is doing great and has started reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. We can tell his mom isn't very fond of the the church or us coming over so we are hoping to establish trust with her, and help her understand we are only here to help her son come unto Christ. It's been hard to get a hold of him because he doesn't have his own phone, so we have to get a hold of him through his mom's phone.

Zane and Nakisha have been really sick this week, but Zane told us that he has already read 6 pages of the Book of Mormon on his own and has really enjoyed it. We meet with them this coming Thursday, and we are hoping to talk about a date for their wedding so we can work towards baptism.

Well I gotta go, I hope it has been a good first week of winter for y'all. Keep me posted!

Sincerely, Elder Watkins

 First Snow

Bonfire

 

 Me and Elder Taunteang

Messengers of the Lord (Week 60)

Sorry for last week's short letter. This last week has been great even though the weather hasn't. This week it's suppose to snow and ice over... Bikes on Ice.

I wanted to tell you guys about C~ last week but I didn't have enough time. I had so many emails to read in an hour (first world problems). You guys are awesome thank you for all of the love and support! Okay so C~, last week we had all of our appointments fall through, so we had a member drop us off back at our house and we walked to visit a less active member. During the walk we handed out two Book of Mormons and two Restoration pamphlets. Super solid finds. We arrived at the member's house and she wasn't home. Hmmm, we had 45 minutes left until 9 o'clock. We pulled out the roster and looked for a member to visit.

There turned out to be a inactive member that lived just up the street and around the corner. We knocked on their door. A man in his late 20s opened the door. We asked if Sister Bb~ was home. He told us she was his mother, but she wasn't home. We asked him for his name and we reached out to shake his hand. He hesitated on shaking our hand (he said he was sick), but told us his name was C~. We introduced ourselves and told him that we were representatives of Jesus Christ. We told him, "We don't want you to be out in the cold while you're sick, but when would be a good time to catch your mom home?" He told us but then abruptly told us to come inside. Me and my companion looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him in. We were slightly taken back by his invitation considering he had been really sick. We stepped inside with faith knowing the Lord would keep us from getting sick. He sat down on his couch and asked us if we could share with him our message. A little shocked by his eagerness, we said we'd love to. We taught him the Restoration and he loved it. The whole time we shared the message he was commenting and asking questions (the best!). We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and invited him to read, ponder and, pray about its message. At the end of the message he told us that he had been praying for help and direction and when he saw us at the door he knew he needed to invite us in and hear our message. He recognized us as messengers of the Lord.

So, that all happened last week, and yesterday we saw him again. He was literally standing by the front door. He invited us in with a smile on his face. We planned on sharing the plan of salvation with him but something told us he need a different message today. We asked him what he has been up to this week and he said, "Just fighting my addictions."  We asked him what his struggle was and he told us he has been fighting a drug addiction since he was 18. We changed our lesson plan and talked briefly about the word of wisdom and the different tools the Lord has given us to fight Satan's evil influence. We told him about the church's Addiction Recovery Program and gave him a pamphlet with more information on it. Sister Bb~ his mother walked in and you could tell she didn't like the church too much. During our visit we had been reading verses from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. She just so happened to walk in while we were sharing Ether 12:27. Being irritated she asked, "Why do you guys always read from the Book of Mormon and never the Bible?" C~ jumped in, "Mother they just read a scripture from John." So awesome! We explained to her the importance of God's word, and how both the Bible and the Book of Mormon are both testaments that Jesus is the Christ. She told us of a bad experience she had with a church member a long time ago, which lead her to leaving the church. We explained to her humans aren't perfect but the gospel is. We continued to teach both of them the importance of the restored gospel we bore our testimonies. Sister Bb~'s heart seemed to soften. She sat in for the rest of the visit and listened as we gave her son advice to read the scriptures and pray every night. By the end of the visit Sister Bb~ seemed to have a different attitude of understanding and love. She told us she wants us to continue coming by as much as we could.

The Spirit softens hearts.

This will be Elder T's last full week in the mission field. I'm going to miss him. He has taught me so much about love and hard work. He has been a wonderful example to me of how a missionary should finish their mission.

Thank you all for your emails and support, keep me posted!

Sincerely, Elder Watkins

P.S. We are getting three new missionaries in the district, and two of them are greenies. No I'm not training yet, but soon. I can feel it.

 New Glasses

Members Concert

Thugs

Before Pen

After Pen

Happy Halloween! (Week 59)

Sorry the email this week is going to be ridiculously short because we have to leave early for zone p-day in Enid (80 miles away) but next week I'll be sure to make up for it!

This week has been awesome. We had an amazing turn out for the ward Halloween party. We had to squeeze 3 extra tables in the cultural hall. A lot of less actives and non-members came. We had Our investigators Z~ and N~ show up. Their kids are awesome haha. Elder T was struggling with a ring toss game so their younger son walked up to him, "Here I got it". He got it on his first try.  Z~ and N~ are awesome, they apparently know a lot of members of the church. Well I guess everyone knows each other in Ponca City haha. We are hoping to teach them tomorrow night, and go over the restoration with Z~.

We have been finding a lot of investigators to teach and our teaching pool is filling up. We had one night where in an hour we found 2 potential investigators that we left Book of Mormons with and a prayer, and taught a new investigator on the spot (I'll tell you his story next week). Super cool.

Once again sorry for the short email. I love you all.

Sincerely, Elder Watkins

Splits, NBA (Week 58)

I neglected to mention last week that we live in a house. Say, "Hello House".

It's a pretty nice place... missionaries have just been living in it, haha. It needs some cleaning and rearranging, but over all it's great environment! We have 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, a back yard, and a basketball hoop in the front! All of our neighbors love us and we talk to them all of the time. In fact a couple of days ago our dinner appointment fell through so we ate a quick meal and shot a few hoops (Elder Taunteang will probably play for BYU and then go into the NBA and play for the Thunder after his mission, he is ridiculous). Anyways our neighbor came outside and came over to us and started shooting hoops with us (he was pretty good for being intoxicated). We talked to him about the gospel and our purpose as missionaries. He opened up a little and told us about his life. We encouraged him to pray and read the scriptures for guidance. He told us he would try, and then we promised him blessings.

Yesterday we were biking down Highland and we heard someone ask "Hey! are y'all Jehovah Witness?" We stopped our bikes and pulled up onto to the sidewalk to these two men. We replied, "No, we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints." We of course got a look of confusion, "We are Mormon missionaries" in unison. "OOH, Okay". We got talking to them, and they told us their stories. Both of them lived at the Ponca City halfway house as prisoners. We asked them if they were allowed to read. The younger one replied, "Yes, do you have a book we can read?". We pulled out two copies of the Book of Mormon, and gave them a summary and went through the pictures at the beginning of the book. We left them with the copies and gave them the promise that the Book of Mormon would help them get back on their feet and give them direction towards their Savior. The spirit was so strong as me and Elder T powerfully bore our testimonies of the Savior's Atonement, and the Restoration of the Gospel. After we biked away to our next appointment I was left with a feeling of peace. This work is so rewarding.

Later that night we taught Z~ and N~ the Plan of Salvation. This was Z~'s first time hearing from the missionaries and he's known as not being very religious. They are a young couple with 3 little kids. We taught the message and the entire time Z~ was listening and asking questions. The spirit was powerful as we talked out eternal families and temples. Temples caught N~'s attention and she began to ask questions. We told them that after baptism they would be able to prepare for their family to go to the temple and be sealed for time and all eternity. I could tell that the spirit was testifying to N~. We left them with the commitment to come to church and read the Book of Mormon. Z~ loved the whole message and told us it made 100% sense to him, and that he was impressed. He is excited to start reading the Book of Mormon, they even said they are going to try to make it to the Book of Mormon class this Wednesday. So cool!

Anyways, time's up! I hope this week has treated you well! You are in my prayers! Keep me posted.

Sincerely, Elder Watkins

P.S. S~'s baptism date got dropped but we are working on getting her ready and prepared for baptism.

Ponca City (Week 57)

Well I'm here now in Ponca City, and I love it! It's amazing here. We cover everything west of seventh street. We are on bikes but we don't have to go out of town because the sisters have a car and visit the distant towns. Ponca City is a lot like my first area in Shawnee. It's an older town with a ton of cool history. Downtown is like walking through the 1920's. The original mayor founder of Conoco Oil built a lot of the old buildings and the architecture look a lot like something from a foreign country, like India or the middle east. I'll have to get some pictures so I can show you. Our area mostly covers downtown, the south shady part of town, and the middle-class northern neighborhood.

My companion is amazing (I figured out how to spell his name finally) Elder Taunteang. He is from Kiribati (an island in the Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific), apparently on their island they cook dogs for food. One night we were talking before bed and our neighbors little dog would not shut up, so I said, "hmmmm, Elder Taunteang... how do you cook a dog?" His response: "Like a chicken" Hahaha he cracks me up. He goes home in 5 weeks. :( He is an amazing hard working missionary and is enduring to the end of his mission.

Me and Elder T have already seen so many miracles just from the 4 days we have served together. I don't even know where to start or how to explain. A couple of days ago we were walking down the street (on the "darkside" of town) when a middle aged man called out to us from his porch. We approached him and started to talk to him. He asked us what church we were with and we start to explain who we were and where we were from. We got into a good discussion about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. he seemed skeptical but interested, we told him our purpose and how the Book of Mormon has blessed our lives. He opened up a little bit but was still stand offish. He told us he wanted to swing by later sometime after he has done some research. We stopped him and invited him to read the Book of Mormon for himself and go to the source of all truth, God. He accepted the Book of Mormon and afterwards said, "I wasn't sure why I called out to you guys because everyone knows that is unlike me. I guess I felt prompted to and I'll leave it at that." Pretty cool stuff, we are going to swing by and see him next week.

Yesterday we fasted for our investigator S~ for her to come to church (she has a baptism date for this Thursday and she needed to come or we would have to push it back). She came and she had an amazing experience, she was able to stay all three hours without schedule conflicts. Later that day we went over to teach her with brother Critchfield and talked about the qualification of baptism in D&C Chapter 20 and the baptismal interview questions. She is such a sweet lady. She is so sincere and honest. She told us that she wants to be baptized, but she is worried that the emotions of losing her husband a year ago (this month being their anniversary) are getting in the way of how she really feels. We told her that we are on the lord errand and he has put us in her path because the gospel will fill those feeling of loss and sorrow. She is so sincere and worried about doing it right. We comforted her and reassured her that she is ready for this step. She is so ready! We are going to go over today to teach her the last discussion on the law of tithing. She going to be baptized this Thursday, things are looking good!

Well the computer is going to log off soon, I best wrap up. I love you all and I'm excited to tell you all about the baptism next Monday!

Sincerely, Elder Watkins

Elder Taunteang and Elder Watkins

Planning with Elder Taunteang

Transfers (Week 56)

I'm getting transferred. I'm going to Ponca City West and I'm going to be companions with an Elder From the Marshall Islands, Elder Tonteung. I am super pumped! But also super sad! I've made so many close friends here and it's hard to leave, I know I will come back for P~'s baptism and hopefully C~ and M~ continue to progress. Elder Staheli is taking over the area and is training a new missionary, we don't know who until the day of transfers. Elder Staheli is going to do great. I'm still waiting for my own posterity, but I know it will come.

This week has been a good last week in Yukon. We got to teach P~ twice! On Wednesday we took the Bynums and talked about receiving answers and listening to the spirit. We watched a couple of general conference talks and discussed the importance of having prophets and apostles. At the end of the lesson Brother Bynum invited P~ to go with them to see Meet the Mormons! and she said yes! Later that week on Saturday we saw her again with Brother Richens. We asked her about the movie and she said she loved it. Her favorite story from the movie was the Missionary Mom, she said she never realized what missionaries sacrifice to share the gospel. That night we watched a Mormon Message with her, On the Road to Damascus. It was super inspired, it mentioned everything that she was struggling with - recognizing an answer from the spirit and coming to church. We helped her make the connection that coming to church is going to be a step in receiving her answer. A BIG STEP. She told us that everything our church stands for and teaches is what she has looked for in a church. I think she is finally starting to see where her answer is going to come (Hint: church). We told her tomorrow was fast Sunday and that we could join her in a fast to receive her answer. She told us that she isn't going to commit but we might see her there. She is so funny. She didn't come but we are going to help her by getting a ride next week.

We are going to see Sc~ one last time on Tuesday and share the plan of salvation with him. It should be good. My favorite story that I've recently be reading and studying in the Book of Mormon is Ether chapters 2 and 3. When The brother of Jared is directed by the Lord to find a way to have light in the vessels. The brother of  Jared brings 16 stones back and prays to Lord to give them light.

4 And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea.

 5 Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men.

These are some of my favorite verses in the Book of Mormon right now. God can do mighty things through the power of faith. Sometimes in a trial we must first ponder and think of what we can do to fix or better our situation and then bring it to the Lord so he can lead us through.

Sorry for another short e-mail. I promise a longer one next week. (I gotta stop ending my emails like this...). I love you all! I hope you all have a great productive week!

Sincerely, Elder Watkins

The Cardon Family

Our Investigator P~

Grandpa and Grandma Tucker

Brother Snodgrass (Ward Missionary)

 Our Investigator Family C~ and M~

 The Hooser Family

Service with Rodney (RC)

A sweet ward member sent this to Russell's Mom