This week was pretty great. I think that the best thing that happened this week was that I found out that Elder Root isn't getting transferred! He and I are staying together at least 6 more weeks in Lexington. I'm way excited to continue to go to Fort Jackson and serving around Elder Root. Honestly I can't really remember most of the specifics that went on this week. I just had an overall good week. Fort Jackson went pretty well. We got to baptize Pvt. Arriaga on Sunday and she is super solid. It was great to watch that.

This will probably be the shortest email that I've sent out yet, just because there wasn't anything that comes to mind right now about what happened. I'm really looking forward to this next week with Halloween and everything. The ward is having a trunk or treat and we're trying to get members to invite their friends  to go so that we can talk to as many people there as possible. Logan and Janet came to church again too! Janet also has changed her schedule at work so that she can have every Sunday off from now on. That was super awesome news and now all they have to do is cut out the smoking and Janet can finally be baptized finally after working with the missionaries for years. Everything is looking great and I hope that something really exciting happens this week. Elder Root and I are going to work hard and we're going to try and be on top of things as much as we can this transfer since we've been privelidged to be together for longer! It should be a great week this week. I hope that everyone had a great week too and I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween.

Love,
Elder Bills

I asked Sean some questions this week and here are his answers:

1. Who have you learned the most from this past week (through their example or actual teachings)? What did you learn and how do you feel about the person you learned from?

I learned a lot from the Brenchleys this week. They're the senior couple that serves with us at Fort Jackson. They took us all out to eat after we helped them with service to thank us and they're just the best senior couple I've met on my mission. They remind me a lot of Grandma and Grandpa. Elder Brenchley is a history professor and he is the military relations rep here and he's just so awesome.

3. What is the best act of service you have performed this past week?

We went to help a widow in the ward with an oil change. We had to go over to another member's to get a certain tool. He was using it on his car so we helped him finish his job to get the tool. By the time we got back Brother Da Rosa had already done the oil change and he was glad he could do it because he had a bad day and was in a grumpy mood but the service cheered him up. And we helped the other member with his car and he needed our help or he wouoldn't have been able to do it! haha

4. Where is your favorite place in your area right now? It could be a pretty place you bike/drive through, a building, a member/investigator's home, etc.

Favorite place here is definitely Cecil's house. I love that guy to death, he is the best member here.

Hey Family,

This week was pretty nuts. A lot of stuff happened and I think I had probably one of the best Sundays I've ever had on my mission.

So the first big thing that went on this week was that the head of the mission department of our church came to our mission to teach the AP's and other leaders about some things that our mission can do in order to better teach, plan, and find investigators here. Since Elder Root and I work with the AP's and the whole new teaching idea that was given would help us alot at Fort Jackson, Elder Root and I got to hear about it too. It was pretty neat to see what the mission department said and we mostly learned how to teach the Restoration in 7 minutes with only the pictures in the pamphlet which was pretty cool. I've done it a few times before but now that it's a set thing that we're encouraged to do I'm definitely going to do it more. It helped a ton at Fort Jackson because we always have to teach really quickly too. President Turner has changed some things and it's been awesome so far. He's been great. He and Sister Turner came to Fort Jackson today too. They come every once in awhile to see how it all goes. We didn't have any baptisms today but we set up some for next week and found some new people to teach. Fort Jackson wasn't really particularly special this week, but church was afterwards. We had 3 Less Actives that haven't come to church in a long time come to church this Sunday! Logan, Sister Garner, and Sister Laberto. It was pretty sweet because we've been working with all of their families this transfer and they showed up on the right Sunday since Elder Root and I were both giving talks. Janet came with Logan too! She really loved church and so they're both on a good track for her getting baptized and for them to go to the temple to be sealed someday.

So Elder Root and I gave talks on Sunday too. Originally they were only supposed to be about 5 minutes, but when we got to church Brother Stacey, the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric said that the third talk isn't going to show up today and so we are probably going to have more time than we had planned haha. He said that he was going to try his best to take up some time. He spoke first and then it was my turn... I always get super nervous whenever I have to give a talk in church for some reason and so I was really nervous when I knew I had to stretch my talk alot. The topic was on conversion and I pretty much just sat there and prayed the whole time in my head for God to help me out and give me some things to talk about so that I could take up more time, and also to help me not be so nervous haha. Well I got up there and literally every word that I said flowed out super well, It felt like I only had spoken for a little under 10 minutes maybe, I said so many things that I didn't plan on saying, and then I finished it off with my testimony and sat right down. Well turns out I took 20 minutes for the whole thing hahaha. It didn't even feel like that long! Elder Root was so happy that I took up all the extra time too haha. He was just as nervous as me. After Sacrament he and I were talking and I went "Man I was praying so hard that I would take up more than 5 minutes while I was sitting there" and he went "Dude me too because I definitely was not going to be prepared for any longer than a couple of minutes!" hahaha. So yeah my talk went awesome and Brother Stacey gave me a big hug and was like "That was perfect" hahaha. He was really stressed on how sacrament was going to go. It seriously was a great talk and I don't even know how I did it, but obviously I had a lot of help from God because there is no way I could have done that on my own haha! 

So yeah this week was awesome. Elder Root and I are really happy with how Sunday turned out and we're going to work with everyone that came to church more so that they can all live the gospel and be happy. Things are looking good.

Love,

Elder Sean Bills

PS Elder Root's parents went to the Phoenix Temple Open House and I told them to look for y'all while you were touring and apparently his dad ran up to every guy that was working there asking them "Are you Brother Bills?" hahahaha. you should get in contact with them! They live in Gilbert and they seem to be really awesome. 

Dear Family,

This week went by way too fast! I had a great time though. Everything went well for the most part and I'm still enjoying my time here a lot. The biggest thing that happened this week was that I got to teach the class at Fort Jackson this week. We all rotate on teaching it and it ended up being my turn to teach it. After Sacrament meeting we have two classes at the front of the chapel. The Restoration class and the Gospel of Jesus Christ class for those who have just started coming to church and are interested to know more. I taught the Restoration class and there were a lot of people there. Some of them were members of the church, but for the most part I didn't know if they weren't members or not. There were about 30 soldiers there and so I actually was a little nervous teaching it at first, but it turned out really well. I only had about 15 minutes to explain the whole lesson so I had to go quickly through it, but at the end a member in the class piped up and helped me out and talked about how the Gospel has effected his life and how they can find it to be true too. Then I shared my experiences about really studying the message and how through prayer and having an intent to know the truth, I was able to find out for myself too. For some reason I felt prompted to share my testimony at the end when we were out of time and It felt a lot more powerful and sincere than it has before. The way I worded how I felt came out really smoothly and I could tell that it impacted some of the soldiers listening so I was really grateful I was able to teach them right and with effect. At the end of the class I invited everyone in the class to talk to me afterwards if they felt like this message may be true so that I can talk with them and invite them to be baptized. Everyone had to leave and so I didn't get to really talk with anyone because they have to board their bus the second it gets there, but Pvt. Zimmermann came up to me and talked with me for a minute. I talked with him and he said he would keep praying and reading so that he can find out if what I was teaching was true, and so I'm going to talk with him next week to see how that goes. Teaching the class was way cool and I feel like a lot of people were listening intently. Fort Jackson was a great experience again this week and I'm always so happy that I get to be part of it every week. We had 2 more baptisms this week too! Pvt. Thomas and Pvt. Johnson were baptized!! Pvt. Johnson was the one I taught last week and I was so glad to hear that he was still ready to go after our lesson together, and I had found Pvt. Thomas the first week I was here and taught him the Restoration and he was so glad to be baptized! It was a great week this week. 

Otherwise not too much else happened this week. I gave my training on prayer and talked about my idea for the prayer book and everyone liked it so hopefully they'll do it and it can help them. I've been keeping mindful of it all week and it's been awesome. Throughout the week I write things down in my planner so that I can add it to my prayer book too. Like whenever I'm talking with a member or an investigator and they talk about something that they're struggling with or something personal I write down to pray for them every night for a week so that I can help them out through prayer. I figured it would build up a lot so I guess a week would be long enough for the most part for God to hear about who needs help haha. My prayers have been a lot more meaningful and it's helped me out a lot. I feel closer to God all the time because of it and it makes my days better and better.

Also: We all went to the fair today and I ran into Sister McDonald from Allen there! Her family is from South Carolina and they were everywhere at the fair haha. It was awesome to see a familiar face. Her brother is a member in the Lexington ward I think? I forget haha.

Janet and Logan were supposed to come to church but they didn't show. We have to move her baptism back because she hasn't been coming to church or keeping other commitments. Hopefully this week things will go better with them, but there's still plenty of time for us to work with them! 

Anyway, this week was great and this next week should be good too. We get to go to Family night at Fort Jackson for all of the member and convert soldiers that are graduating and we get to meet their families and hang out with them for a couple of hours pretty much. I'm excited for that.

I hope that your week was good too. 

Love

Elder Bills

I'm doing pretty great. This week flew by especially with conference. I liked it a lot. There's a huge difference in watching it compared to when I was in high school haha. I guess I just didn't really think much of it before and I always got really tired and bored before, but now I focus in the whole time and it flies by. I learned a ton from it too. We watched conference at the church, Fort Jackson doesn't get conference on base and so we just had our regular church meeting there. We had two baptisms too! It was a really awesome day and I got to interview one of the privates who got baptized and then teach a guy named Pvt. Johnson that is getting baptized next week. I had a really great lesson with him and he was a little skeptical on feeling like he would be okay being baptized because of some past choices but I made sure that I read a lot about the Atonement to him and talked to him about it and it gave him a lot of reassurance and he's pretty much ready to be baptized now. The Spirit was really strong and teaching him was a great experience. 

I saw Coleman during the Priesthood session! I thought that was pretty sweet. Where is he going on his mission again? I bet it was pretty sweet to sing there, not too many people get to do it.  (He is referring to Coleman Anderton from our ward in Gig Harbor who sang in the MTC choir at General Conference. Coleman is going to Taiwan on his mission.)

A lot of the talks during conference were really great too! I really really liked Elder Christofferson's and then one of the Quorum of the Seventy named Jorge or something I can't remember. I really needed a lot of the messages given at conference this week. This week I just had been doing a lot of thinking because I periodically do that on my mission. i was just thinking a lot about how I can always improve and make sure I'm getting everything I can all the time when I'm out here. I had been studying a lot about constant repentance in my life and also I've been trying to improve my prayers a lot too. Watching those talks gave me a lot of insight on things that I could do to become better and also things that I can share with others (like Elder Bednar's talk). I feel pretty awesome since watching all of that and I'm ready for all of the coming months on my mission. 

What's amazing is that I've already been getting a lot of good ideas already since conference! Like today Elder Pulotu wanted me to give a training at DDM tomorrow on prayer and I had this idea pop in my mind. So since I already have been trying to improve my prayers so that I can make them more meaningful and try and be more in tune with the Spirit I thought that I could make like a "prayer book" thing. Basically I just write down things i'm praying for, questions I've been asking, and things I'm thankful for. Then whenever I get an answer to my questions or blessings from asking for things, I can write them down next to those and then I can always keep track of things I'm thankful for or ask for so that I can always make sure my prayers aren't rote, and also it'll help me be more receptive to the Spirit and other promptings since I'll be actively looking for answers to questions and stuff like that. So I'm gonna train on that and just have our district do it too so that they can improve their prayers! ISN'T THAT IDEA GREAT? IT POPPED IN MY HEAD OUT OF NOWHERE AND IT WAS AWESOME ESPECIALLY CAUSE I GOT THAT IDEA FROM GOD.

I can tell it was from God because it makes me pray better and more often and in Moroni it says that anything that entices us to do good and have faith in Christ is of God.



Love y'all,

Elder Bills