Wilhelmsen, Cody

Hey everyone,     So I got transferred this week and I am in Surprise, Arizona! It is right outside actual Phoenix, but it is still down in the valley area. It is quite the experience when at the beginning of the week it snows(being up in Prescott), and by the end of the week it's hitting close to the 90's.     On Saturday we did some community service for 8 hours, which was great. Not having been in the sun for a while I got absolutely fried, but it was great to be out there talking to a lot of people.     I am now serving in a YSA ward, which is fun because I am with people my own age, but the whole dynamic is so different. I'm looking forward to serving in it, and our other family ward.     My new Companion is Elder Pope. He is 23 years old, he likes to draw, and Play video games. It has been a blast so far this week, but we have been doing nonstop work since i got here so we are exhausted.      One cool thing this week was we ha...

Hey everyone,      This is a day later because we have transfers this week. I'm getting transferred down to the phoenix valley tomorrow. I will be covering a YSA ward, so I'm excited! It's crazy that i have been up here in Prescott for 6 months. I'm going to miss it and miss my companion (Elder Kuponokeali'ihanohanookalani Chandler), but i'm excited to be in Phoenix.     This week the sisters in our district low key tried to prank us, so the other night we put Vaseline on the door handles of their car, and saran wrapped the car with 2000 ft of Saran wrap(Pic below). It was hilarious, and they were not too happy, until the next night they put peanut butter all over the windows of our car. Sisters are mean hahaha.     Also this week, Elder Alliud of the Seventy did two mission wide zoom calls with our mission. It was super spiritual, and turns out he is hilarious. He talked about the Book of Mormon and how it has been given to us to help bring people clo...

Hey everyone,     It is the middle of March, and if you can believe it, it snowed again! Right when it's supposed to start getting warm, it changes.     On Tuesday we had exchanges and I was with Elder Zollinger for the day. We had a really cool experience in one of our lessons. One of the people we are teaching named Jay, is super smart. He has a Masters in Theology and Psychology, and has given religious Sermons all around the country and wrote a book. I was nervous for the lesson, until I remembered this Scripture: Alma 37:7 “7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls”     This gave me comfort, because even though he is very smart, I know I have the spirit with me. To my surprise, as we taught him, he stopped us and told us that what we were saying was giving him chills. It was amazing to see the spirit touch so...

Hey everybody,     This has been a great week!     Last night , the members house we went to, went to the Philippines on his mission. We showed up and he had made us 5 dishes of authentic Philippines food. He made Tsamporado, lumpia, kaldereta, adobo, chicken curry. I'll be honest, when i walked in, i was a little nervous, because i couldn't even pronounce what i was about to eat. It was delicious tho!     Another cool thing that happened is we are helping teach this lady named Kay. She is so weird, but so funny. We were in a lesson teaching and I don't remember what I said but she stopped me and said, "You're a leader by teaching". I was like what does that mean? She said when I started teaching the room gets silent. She then started Crying and said I pierced her heart with what I said, and it touched her deeply. That was so cool, to see the Holy Ghost touch someone in a lesson so strongly.      Also this week we were at a members house and ...

Hey Everyone,     This has been an amazing week!     On Wednesday, we walked into our church building and some youth and leaders were playing basketball so we played basketball with them. The teams were me and the 3 other elders in our apartment, against 16 youth and leaders. It was crazy but super fun. They said it was the funnest activity they've had in a long time!     Another fun thing we did this week was on Saturday we did a service Project with all the Seniors in our stake. There were like 8 missionaries, and probably 15 seniors. We walked along a creek there and picked up trash. If it shows you how much trash was in the creek, we found a full shopping cart in it hahaha (pics below). It was a great activity, and was cool to connect with the Seniors. Only downside was that I cut my arm on a tree, but it wasn't too bad.     I am also trying to make new foods this week, and we have an elder in our apartment whose parents are both from Mexico, ...