May 26

the difference in my shirts

This week was an awesome week. We have still had a ton of difficulty making any progress here but we were able to figure out why. The problem is that the members haven´t been suporting us for a while. They released the branch mission leader a few weeks ago and they haven´t called the new one yet because a member from the stake presidenct has to come to the branch, so we are without help for a while. There have been a ton of problems here, and we are having a really hard time helping people progess. But moments like these are when we can grow as missionaries and the branch can learn the importance of participating. Plus I have a lot of faith that with prayer some people can get baptized this month.

As far as the investigators go, it´s basically the same. Yormitt gets married this Saturday we hope, but marriage is really hard here and her husband lost his job so if he doesn´t get a new one, they will have to spend the marriage money that we had to raise with an activity. Please pray a lot for her so that her husband gets a job and she can get married and baptized. We have also started to teach her husband, now that he has a little more time, and it´s going along well. He can get baptized too.

Isabel is super ready to get baptized but is having a hard time leaving her Catholic traditions behind. She reads the Book of Mormon a lot, and she has a testimony, but she can´t make that final step and get baptized. Plus she hasn´t gone to church for a couple weeks since she works in the hospital and has had to go for emergencies, among other things. Basically the point of this week´s letter is that there is a ton of really hard stuff happening to the people, and we need more than ever your prayers to help them get over it, or to know if we need to move on for a time.

This week I was finally able to get  a member to make my clothes smaller, and they turned out great. I look way more skinny now. I am skinny, I weigh 220 lbs. I´m down 130 from where I was 2 years ago. The trick will be keeping it off when I´m home again, but I already am making plans.

Well I love you all and hope you have a great time swimming.

Elder Wilson

May 19

A district meeting

A service project

Well it was great to see you all this week over Skype! That´s always a fun experience. This week was pretty awesome. We have been able to keep working hard and getting a lot done, and there is nothing that feels better than that. Plus we have made a lot of progress with some poeple, like Isabel Varela who finally told us why she didn´t feel ready to get baptized. I guess it´s a family problem since her whole family is Catholic.

There are transfers tomorrow, but I don´t expect to get transfered. Or at least I hope not. They tell us tonight and then we have to leave here tomorrow morning super early. So I´ll let you know how it goes.

I have been doing a lot to learn how to cook, and today the relief society president taught us how to make Sancocho, a delicious soup that is very common here. It´s very simple with water and some vegetables and some meat, but it is delicous.

Well sorry the letter wasn´t very good this week but I´m low on time.

Love,

Elder Wilson

May 12

 Yormitt selling shishkabobs, or preparing them. Yormitt is the one by my companion, and the other 2 poeple are an awesome family from the branch. We eat dinner here every night. They are one of the 2 sealed families in the branch.

 the people that came to the activity. The little house-chapel filled up

preparing the food for an activity my companion and I planned for the branch

Since I will be seeing you all this week, I wanted to talk a little about my investigators and some of the challenges they have, so that if you have an idea you can tell me.

First off is Yormitt Sanjuan. She is doing great. She has given us referrals to go visit her family, and she is super happy about the church. This week she did an activity to sell shishkababs to raise the money for her marriage, and is turned out great. My companion and I finally met her husband and we taught him and he´s interested, and we are trying to teach her 9 year old daughter too. She doesn´t like to listen because she is kind of shy, but her mom really wants us to teach her and her dad is fine with it.

We have the Varela family, which is a little more complicated. There are 2 pairs of spouses, married (YES) that listen to us. The parents, and their daughter and her husband. They also really love the massage but they don´t progress much. The son of the older couple recently died of a heart attack a few months ago and they are devastated. It´s actually what keeps them from progressing, because as a family they get depressed and they don´t want to do anything anymore. Like nothing, and not reading the Book of Mormon either. One of them reads the Book of Mormon a lot, but her husband is kind of in charge of the whole house and he doesn´t read or pray about it. We really try to help them see that when they feel bad, they need to read, but they haven´t done it. They didnt go to church this week because they went to the cemetary instead. They have also invited us to go with them to their son´s tomb haha.

We are also teaching Leidys Escobar, one of Yormitt´s nieces. She is super excited about the church. She has been friends with the branch president since forever. She lives in free union but today we are teaching her about the law of chastity. She came to church for the first time last week and participated a ton in the classes. She is super excited, I think thanks to Yormitt´s influence. Seriously Yormitt is more converted than some members I have met. But I guess with Leidys a problem that we have is her time. She studies in Barranquilla and goes there and comes back every day, so she doesn´t have much time. But she always gives us whatever time she has.

Well that was my letter for the week, I hope you all enjoy it.

Love,

Elder Wilson

May 5

You can see that I sweat a little here and that my shirts are a little way too big

Dear family,

I am glad to hear that you all had a great week. What i do on P-day is go to the computer in the morning to send the reports to the leaders, and there I print out your letters so I can read them during the day. And then we go to the computers to write during the evening, or right after lunch.

Today we had a zone activity, and we watched Shrek 3. It was really funny but I ate way too much pizza first, like Adalyn told me in her letter. i feel your pain Addy.  But its always nice to have a little fun with the other missionaries, they can get to bo great friends in the mission.

Yormitt is really doing great but there have of course been a lot of problems impeding her progress. She was going to do an activity to sell Shichkababs (I have no clue how to spell that) on Saturday, but her husband´s boss didn´t pay him for 3 weeks of work, so she was without capital. So she is doing it on Saturday and we will all pray that she can sell a lot so that she can get married. I think this will be the first time I marry someone in my mission, since it can be very hard here. But really when the people have faith and desire they can do it without too much problem.

What day does Covey get married? Or I guess when you write me it will be over. How was the wedding? I wish I could be there! Who all from the family is going?

This week I have been thinking  lot about Mom and her great example to us. I have really been able to feel her special, loving Spirit with me in a few occasions this week I makes me remember a talk I heard from Elder Scott when I was in the MTC. He said that sometimes wek think that it is the Spirit helping us or the investigators, when it is really a ministering angel. I know that ministering angels really do exist and thay they help us. I also remember that before the mission Dad gave me a priesthood blessing and told me that mom would be with me. I know that that has come true a lot of times here.

Well I love you and hope that you are all doing great, I am looking forward to calling you on Skype next week.

Love,

Elder Wilson