Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Merry Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Had a fun Zone Activity this week where we did a White Elephant gift exchange. And the gift I ended up with was a very useful water bottle actually. So I think I got very lucky! And one fun thing from the zone activity. Elder Daley had some stick on mustaches that we wore when we first got there! It was a lot of fun!

Tuesday we got to go to the mission office again so that Elder Daley could get his new companion...hopefully for the last time...and the new Elder's name is Elder Green. When we found out his name, Elder English and I were hoping that he was a new missionary...but he wasn't. He has been out 13ish months. But it is all good, and he is a really awesome guy!

I got to go on exchanges this week with one of the zone leaders. The reason why being the other zone leader and Elder English had a recent convert of theirs that went through the temple for the first time this last week, so they got to go with her to the temple. We had a lot of fun on our exchange, and at one point we visited some of their investigators for a Christmas party thing at their house, and the investigators member friend showed up from Fallbrook. And it was the couple that I had dinner with the first night I was back in the mission! The Grigg's family! I didn't remember their names until the party when they introduced themselves, but it was still really cool to see them again! Also on exchanges we got to go to a baptism of a lady Elder Petersen (the one I was with) had taught before she moved to another Oceanside ward. It was cool!

Other than that there really isn't much to talk about for this week. But I want to end with one of my personal favorite scriptures predicting the birth of Christ. Isaiah 9:6-7, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." I love the Christmas season, and I really love the added blessing that we have from our Heavenly Father that is the priceless gift of His son Jesus Christ.

I hope you have a merry Christmas!

Love,

Elder Wixom

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Christmas is Around the Corner!

So this last week has been pretty exciting. Let's get to it!

Last Monday was really fun. After emailing and shopping and stuff we played some awesome games! First we got all the Nerf stuff that we had and had a giant Nerf war in the church gym! We got chair racks and tables to hide behind and stuff. It was really fun! And then afterwards we sat in a circle of chairs and played some small games. It was a very very fun day!

Had a very fun Zone Training Meeting this week. At the meeting there were lots of trainings about working with members, which is part of our mission's "Phase 2" movement, which is focusing on receiving referrals from members. We also had a training called, "Who What What When" with that being an easy setup for asking for a referral. When we practiced this, I was actually practicing with one of the Assistants who was visiting the meeting, and we got it done very quickly, and then for the rest of the practice we talked about how easy this actually was. Because in less than 5 minutes both of us had thought of a person in our lives we had hoped to work with.

It was pretty damp here this last Friday. Thankfully most of the dampness was during our weekly planning time, so we didn't really get wet at all. But it was pretty fun the rest of the day, because we ended up going to the church to meet our Zone Leaders to get mail for people, and then President Kendrick showed up, so that was really funny, because Elder English asked him what he was doing there, and he said, "I work here Elder." And it turns out he had a meeting with someone. But then even better! Elder Daley and his companion showed up as the people President was talking to (about splitting the YSA ward with some Sisters), and after their meeting we talk to Elder Daley about exchanges, and end up going on exchanges that night! So I was with Elder Dunford, Elder Daley's companion, who was on a knee scooter/crutches because of a bone in his foot being out of place. But it was a really good exchange, we had a lot of laughs and Elder Dunford is a really cool guy!

And then Saturday night we had our Ward Christmas Party, "Angels Among Us." It was really good, and there was a great turnout...especially as far as Elder English and I were hoping. Because a couple less active members came to the event, socialized with quite a few people, and overall had a great experience. One of the cool parts was that we had a part where the youth (and the missionaries because some youth missed the party) read stories about service people had turned in anonymously for the event. It was really cool!

Then some less exciting news was that Sunday night I was on splits with Elder Dunford again because his foot was bothering him too bad. And then because of that he actually had to go home for medical reasons for a while. So that was not fun because Elder Dunford was a really good missionary, but thankfully he plans on coming back out as soon as he is ship-shape again! And for a couple days I am back in the trio with Elder Daley!

That's pretty much all for this week. For my spiritual thought I'm going to share an old favorite from the New Testament. Matthew 25:40, "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." This is to go along with the Christmas party theme, because we never know the impact even the smallest act of service will have on someone else. And on mormonchannel.org there is a Christmas Video called "The Old Shoemaker" that I would encourage you to watch. It is a touching story about service to others.

Thanks for all you do! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Wixom


You can link to the video, The Old Shoemaker, above or watch it here:


Monday, December 8, 2014

The End of the Trio...



Well, as the title says, this week Elder English, Elder Daley and my tri-panionship ended. But before I get to that there is some other stuff to say!

Just like last week. We have been really really really busy this week since we were covering all three wards. And also just like last week half the time I didn't even know what was going on! But we had some really fun lessons with a few of the less-active members of our ward.

One of those lessons started off with the ward council giving us a name that none of them knew who it was. So, us, being the missionaries, went to go stop by. We knocked on the door where the less active member was supposed to live...and found him! And then he let us in! He was a very nice guy and was very open with having us visit him. And he told us that he was wanted to start going back to Church regularly again. We had a nice visit with him, and then we invited him to come to church the next Sunday, and he said he would. Sure enough, he was at church yesterday! He told us he was only going to stay for sacrament meeting but that next week he would stay the whole three hours.

With Elder Daley
Another fun story from later in the week. At one point we were trying to figure out some logistics for some lessons we had (one in Elder English and my ward and one in Elder Daley's family ward), and in the end we decided that Elder English would go on splits for the one in our ward and that I would go with Elder Daley to his. We get to the lesson, and it goes really good! The lady we were teaching said that she wasn't planning on getting converted, but that she would love to have us keep coming by. So that was really good!

But the fun part is what happened after the lesson!

After we got out of the lesson Elder English was still in his, and so Elder Daley and I just decided to go contacting. We start walking down a side street and we see a family talking pictures in front of a tiger mural. So, me, trying to be nice while also trying to lead into a gospel conversation, asked if they wanted me to take a picture of all of them. They respond with something like, "Oh no, we're good. We don't take help from Jehovah Witnesses. We're actually LDS." So we all start laughing at that, and then the man in the group turns to us and says, "Ok, I actually have a magic trick for you two." Elder Daley and I are just like, "Sweet." And he says, "One of you...you I think..." pointing at me, "...is from La Verkin, Utah." I said, "Yeah" thinking in my head that it must be a member from one of my old wards (which made sense because I thought I had recognized him). Then he said, "And your dad is in the bishopric." I thought, 'Oh, must be from Temecula, because Dad didn't get put there till just before I came back out' and then he said, "and your mother just recently got a new calling." At this point I was a bit shocked since I hadn't told anyone that. Ever. Lastly he says, "and you have a brother who is a priest." At which point I said, "Nope."

Anyways! Turns out that it was Brother Gary Chaves! The high councilman that covers good old La Verkin 6th ward! It was really funny to run into someone from La Verkin in Carlsbad! So we got some pictures, talked for a few minutes, and then Elder Daley and I went on our way laughing about it.
Elder Wixom with the Chaves Family
After that nothing too dramatic happened except that Elder Daley finally got his new companion. His name is Elder Dunford, and he is a pretty cool guy! It's kind of sad that the trio has been split apart, because it was a lot of fun. But at the same time I'm glad that it is over, because now I can give all my efforts back to the Carlsbad 3rd ward!

My scripture thought for the day will be Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."  I really like it just because there really is a time for everything according to the wisdom of the Lord. For me specifically there was a time to be in a trio, and now it is time to not be. And there is a time to be a regular person, and then there is a time to be a missionary, and it's my time to be a missionary.

Reading a good book at the Free Library

Love you all! Thank you for all of your support!

Love,

Elder Wixom

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas! Well...Sort of!


I am shocked that it is already December! The last month of 2014! The year has really flown by! And Christmas lights have started popping up everywhere I look now, but that's about the only sign of Christmas here. Because the weather here is still bright, sunny, and pretty nice. Not cold really at all. It's a little bizarre honestly for it to be Christmas time, but being able to walk around comfortably in a short sleeve shirt.

Anyways! On to my week!

This week was actually really exciting. Not so much because of what happened as far as missionary work. But as far as what happened with us missionaries. So last week I told you that I had Elder English as a companion, well this week we got another missionary temporarily. His name is Elder Daley (and was actually one of the missionaries I split my ward in Murrieta with), and the story behind it is that he is our district leader, and a couple weeks ago his companion had to go home for medical reasons. So he got a temporary companion who was waiting for his companion to get into the mission, and this last week the other missionary's companion arrived. At this point he got put with us for what we thought would be the rest of the transfer, but then President Kendrick told us it would only be for a week or so. One of the best parts though! Elder Daley covers two wards, and so us three have been covering three wards for the past week! It has been one wild ride!

Elder Wixom, Elder Daley, Elder English
Well, now for some actual exciting things we did this week.

Thanksgiving this week was a lot of fun! The morning actually got made into our P-day, and last Monday our P-day got shortened (pretty much just time to email and shop). So what we did was first we had breakfast at a members home in Elder Daley's family ward (the other is a Young Single Adult ward). It was really good! We had the two members, us three Elders, and the two Sisters that Elder Daley splits his ward with. We had a yummy breakfast, set up their Christmas tree, and then played some games for a while until us Elders had to leave (then the Sisters stayed and helped decorate their tree for a bit). Later we had three dinners over the course of the night. One with members in my ward, and then one with members in Elder Daley's family ward, and then lastly with one of Elder Daley's investigators. It was very very VERY filling, and I am personally a little bit glad I don't have to do it again. One Thanksgiving is plenty enough for me.

The other fun part of the week was figuring out church. What we ended up doing was having Elder English go with our ward mission leader on splits for our ward, then Elder Daley and I went to meetings for his family ward, but ended up having to not go to that ward for meetings in the YSA ward, which then we went to. It was a lot crazier to figure out than that description made it sound. But it was a very exciting Sunday.

Other than that not too much happened specifically. We were just really busy covering three wards. We did some service for a member in our ward this week, some service with other missionaries for someone in their ward, and then we also got to meet some really cool members in Elder Daley's family ward that the husband and kids are recent converts. Fun thing from there is we ended up talking about the meanings of names, and what we figured my name means: Jonathon - "Gift from God" (which I already knew that was why you named me that), Dean - either "Valley" "Leader of church or school" or "Law", and then Wixom - "from a town in Hampshire, England originally spelled Wyckham" So I guess I'm a gift of God that is meant to be a leader from Wyckham...or something like that!

Some awesome sunbeams and stuff we saw this week.
Totally made me think of the glory of the celestial kingdom when I saw it!
Now for my spiritual thought. The Church is starting a "Christmas Initiative" with a video entitled "He is the Gift" it's on christmas.mormon.org and it is about Christ being the "first Christmas gift" and how we need to remember what He has done for us. The scripture that goes along with it is John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." So what I would encourage is watch the video, and then share this "gift" with as many people as possible so that we can all remember the true reason for the season.

Happy December! Talk to you again next week!

Love,

Elder Wixom

He Is the Gift