First Baptism

Hey everybody,

 

 

Sorry this is coming late, P day got switched to Tuesday because transfers are tomorrow. This week has been super good, just a little uneventful.

 

 

The main highlight this week was my first baptism! It was with a guy named Robert that we have been working with since I got here. It is wonderful to see how you can truly learn to love someone in such a short amount of time. In addition it is awesome to see how much someone can progress in a little over a month. He asked me to speak on baptism during the program which was so great. He kept smiling afterwards and when we would ask him how he felt he would just say, "clean" and "ready for the holy Ghost". The spirit during the baptism was so strong!

 

 

Another funny thing that happened this week was that, we texted our stake president on Saturday to see if him and his counselors could play basketball yesterday, and he said, "I don't think my counselors are available, but I want Wilhelmsen one on one" hahahaha. So we played yesterday morning early. It was pretty fun, we played best of 3 (or first to 2 wins), and I won the first 2 so then he played one of our other roommates and won.

 

 

On Sunday in Sacrament meeting an older gentleman was standing in the back of the chapel during a talk, and suddenly fell and smacked his head on one of the benches and collapsed. The bishopric ran to the back to help him, and we luckily had like 4 doctors/surgeons in our ward so he ended up alright, but it was pretty scary.

 

 

I've been reading a lot this week in Helaman, and it talks a lot about Nephi receiving exact revelation on things, such as the chief judge being murdered, and who murdered him. It was pretty easy to feel inadequate, and doubt that I could ever do something like that or reach that stage in my life. Luckily I found the talk by Elder Jeffrey R Holland, "be ye therefore perfect- eventually". For those that haven't read or listened to it yet, I would recommend it. It changed my perspective a lot. It says in the talk,

"My brothers and sisters, except for Jesus, there have been no flawless performances on this earthly journey we are pursuing, so while in mortality let’s strive for steady improvement without obsessing over what behavioral scientists call “toxic perfectionism.” We should avoid that latter excessive expectation of ourselves and of others and, I might add, of those who are called to serve in the Church—which for Latter-day Saints means everyone, for we are all called to serve somewhere"

This struck home with me and helped me realize that If I am doing my best, the lord will help me become who he needs me to be and that no one is perfect.

 

  

Thank you everyone for the emails, they are greatly appreciated!

 

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Elder Wilhelmsen 

 

 

1. Last picture with the guys in our apartment before transferring

2. Robert before his baptism

3. Cool quote I saw

4. Sweaters