June 2

Well this week has been an interesting week for me since they did an emergency transfer. I stayed here and my companion as well, but what they did was pull out our district leader and his companion, and I´m the new district leader. Luckily it´s a pretty easy district, with 3 companionships. Us, the zone leaders, and the sister missionaries here in the branch. I have felt very humbled by this, but more surprized than anything.

The work is really struggling here in Baranoa. There are a lot of members who are without a job, fighting with their spouse, and all those things. The bad part is that they are not being obedient in the small things, like tithing and the reading of the Book of Mormon. So they expect blessings without doing their part and they don´t get them. And I think that the conduct of the members is affecting a little bit the missionary work, because it´s like my companion and I are fighting a battle alone. 

Yormitt is having some huge difficulties. She was scheduled to get married this Friday and baptized this Saturday, but she is fighting a lot with her partner and they might separate. I guess a large part of the fight is that she wants to get baptized no matter what, and so since her partner doens´t want to get married, that are going to separate. All my companion and I were able to say is that if she reads the scriptures and prays and fasts, then the Spirit will guide her to the right choice and she will know what to do. So we hope it all works out.

I do have to concede that the branch did an awesome activity this week for a late mother´s day. We were all waiting for it to start and the branch president says Elders, can you please be in charge of the spiritual portion? and they the program started. We had a hymn and a prayer´s worth of time to plan out our message, but it went well. I almost cried talking about mothers but I pulled it together pretty well. The Varela family went, and I think it helped them. There were dances, songs, skits, and I think they liked to see that the church isn´t as boring as they thought.

Well I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Elder Wilson

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

April 21

the sweets activity:

Motocarro: The primary means of transportation in the village. My companion and I can get to any part of the village for just $1, and they give us a little extra money each month because our area is huge.

The Catholic procession from Holy Week: sorry it isn't very good I was laying in bed when I took it

This week was a very good week. It was holy week, which is actually a pretty big affair here. First off, no one is working and no one has school. They have a lot of processions and have a tradition of making sweets from fruits. For example, they grab a mango, bland it, dump in a ton of sugar, and cook it all together with a couple other things. Its super delicious. The branch did an activity where each organization made one or two sweets and then there was a contest to see which was the best. Relief Society won. They made my companion and I be judges, along with the sister missionaries in the branch. It was fine until they gave us the sweet made from beans. I didn´t like it very much but oh well.

As far as the investigators go, we really need your prayers for Karina Coba. Ever since her interview she doesn't want to talk to us, she doubts her testimony, and she started saying stuff like we dont need a church because we can worship God in our hearts, etc. She has/had a testimony at one point, but we are really focusing on the Book of Mormon to help her. Once she has a testimony she won't have a problem getting baptized.

We are progressing a lot with the Varela family. V sounds like B in Spanish, actually its the same letter. Barela family. The problem is that they want to make great friends with us instead of keeping thier commitments. The problem is that they really like me, I think probably because I'm white and talk with a slight accent and whatnot. But I don't know what I can do to help them understand what we do as missionaries, since we have explained it to them very clearly. We are also focusing a lot on the Book of Mormon.

What have you all learned from Preach my Gospel in your studies this week? In my studies I focused a ton on the Book of Mormon. Elder Waddel talked a lot about how the Book of Mormon in the key in helping the investigators get faith for repentance, so we are applying what he said and it is going well. Also thanks for praying for me on the piano, it turned out very well.

Elder Wilson

April 14

Well this week was a great week for the missionary work. We were able to see 11 investigators in sacrament meeting, most of which were from a family that is really interested. They had a family member die recently and we taught them the plan of salvation and they loved it. We are going to help them understand why they need to get baptized to be an eternal family tonight and set a baptismal date.

We need for you all to pray for Karina, an investigator that was supposed to get baptized this Saturday. The problem is that she had her inverview with a zone leader and the had to say some stuff that made her feel really unconfortable, and now she knows that she will have to do it again with the mission president. So we are doing everything possible to help her get excited about it again and we hope that she agrees to do the other interview.

I also need your prayers since this week Elder Waddel from the first quorum of the 70 is coming to town and I have to play the piano again. The problem is that they asked me to play a special number that I have never played before, and there is no way to practice here since there is no piano. I have to accompany the zone in singing army of helaman, so luckily it isnt too hard but I really need the Lords help to play it at the level it should be for a 70. I get nervous when I play piano in from of them, like with Elder Uceda.

Well we are seeing some great changes in the branch as far as missionary work goes. In the last 2 years 130 people were baptized here, and the attendance at sacrament meeting went up like 6, so there is a HUGE problem with the retention. But we have been meeting with the branch president and we are changing up how they do ward council here and it should get a lot better. Because in some ways a missionary feels like he is fighing a losing battle when he knows that the branch does little to help the members stay active. But its great because the members have a lot of desire now to help and they are willing to change some thins up to make a difference. It was great to see yesterday that they called Jeimi Bolivar as a branch missionary and she is super excited about it. I think it will really help her to stay active.

How are the wedding plans coming along? And how is Brooke´s pregnancy? I´m glad that you all had a great, relaxing spring break. to answer your questions Dad my clothes are fine but my shoes wont last too much longer, especially since here in Baranoa I am walking over hot sand all day. Im sending in my shirts to get made smaller this week.  My weight is good, I keep getting skinnier every week. My companion and I get along very well, and he's awesome because he helps me stay obedient and diligent always.

Well I love you all and I pray for you every day.

Elder Wilson