Nov 25

 Here we are after the game. I get a little sweaty running in Barranquilla. Actually I get sweaty sleeping here. By chance the young man in front on the right in black is Emanuel, the guy I did divisions with.

Daniel is a kid 10 years old that we are teaching to baptize. Hes great and has always come to church. Hes the kid right behind my companion

Well this week was very difficult because of various things that happened each day that robbed us of proselyting time. Sorry I don't know how to spell that. But the good thing that happened was the fireside with president. Not a single investigator came, but I was able to feel and see your prayers when around 15 nonmembers came with their member friends. I have never seen that level of effort from the members to invite and bring friends, so it was great and inspiring to see it this time. The bad thing that happened was that my companion has had a lot of back pain, and the doctor gave him 3 days of staying in the house. And that same day I got another fever. Thats 2 fevers in about 1 month. But Im better now.

A great experience I had this week was being able to do divisions with a ward missionary for a day. He is 18 years old and is waiting for his mission call. He's only been in the church for about a year. So it was cool to watch him teach and testify about the plan of salvation and the atonement. It was also really cool to see how God helped me to make up for not working with a really experienced missionary and working with a basically recent convert. I felt a difference in my ability to teach and contact, because I really wanted to make him contact, that came from the Lord.

Sorry but I really don't have a lot of time today. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!!

Nov 18

This week was really great. We didn´t teach as much as we´d have liked to but it was because of some solid activities we did. First off, everything is all set up for the fireside with Pte. Searle this Wednesday. Please pray that lots of people come and bring investigators. It´s a big sacrifice for him. We had a movie night this week We watched 17 miracles. The idea was for members to bring friends, but not one nonmormon came. So that made me sad because we spent a lot of time setting it up.

In good news, the ward is finally starting to put together a ward mission plan. I anticipate a lot of success and miracle as a result of their efforts to synchronize the missionary labor. How many people assist thge ward there? also, are you aware of the ward mission plan, if there is one?

That was cool to hear that the whole ward is doing a house-swap type of thing. I´m sure we can use this opportunity to do a lot of service. But also I´m really proud of all that you are doing to help the victims of the typhoon. I brag to all the missionaries from this ward.

We played soccer again today, I made 2 goals. Golazos actually, if you understand what that means (Covey). Basically an awesome goal. McKay great job on your talk, I read it. My ward here is working on reverence. Emma I´m super jealous of space camp. I went twice when I was a kid and one time is was super scary and I had nightmares. But it´s awesome.

Sorry I don´t have pics this week either. But I´ve been inspired to start trying to take more. I just don´t have a lot of opportunity since we can only use the camera on Mondays.Krysti I hope your lesson goes well. I recommend Doctrine and Covenants 100:5-8. I love that scripture as a missionary.

I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday. Im not sure how it´s worked out this way but it´s the first of my mission. But when you´re a missionary, you don´t feel as nervous about public speaking. I talked about how to present the Book of Mormon to friends. It was more of a training than a talk. But I really wanted them to hear it so it was good.

My testimony of the Gospel has really increased this week as I applied the principles of repentance and faith to our biggest companionship weakness of talking to everyone. There is a rule as a mission which requires us to talk to 10 people in the street every day. I really want to do it, but when I get out there and it´s burning hot (there weren´t clouds in the sky all week, it´s been horribly hot) I lose the motivation. Plus a muscle in my leg has really been bothering me lately when I walk. So I don't talk to as many people as I should. But I´ve been focusing on the Gospel to improve, and I have seen that God helps us. And forgives us when we aren´t strong enough. So I´ve had a great week with that. Even though I still need to improve more.

Things are great with my companion. He´s a great missionary. He was a zone leader. And yesterday we had the chat about how I don´t want him to end his mission bad (he goes home in January) so we´re going to finish it off super strong. Though in all likelihood I get a new companion in transfers the 4th of December. Elder Franco has been in this area 6 months. But the prophet made a rule of a missionary in the same area 6-8 months. So we´ll see.

Well I love you guys and hope that you have a great week!

Love,

Élder Wilson

still sick but doing great

Hola Familia! 

This week was great. First off though, Im still a little sick with a cough and a runny nose. But nothing too bad. Its really funny here when it rains, everyone stays inside their house. For example, ward council was canceled because it was sprinkling even just a tiny little bit. But anyways they do this because they think theyll get sick if they get slightly damp. so when it was raining and I was sick and visited people, they all started to tell me I needed to stay inside or whatever. But I didnt, and now Im still sick after over a week.

I played soccer again this morning with some of the youth from the ward. Im still really bad, but it was fun. Also this week a met this awesome lady thats Taoist. I studied Taoism before the mission in college so it was cool to meet one. Especially since it was a Christian shake-up. They encourage readinbg the Book of Mormon becuase its all about being calm or whatever, and they believe in doing the things of least resistance. So it was really cool to meet her.

We´re still struggling to find new people in this area, so we dont really have anyone thats progressing. We need some big miracles, but Ive got a feeling theyre on their way. Sorry the typing is bad again, im on the same computer that doesnt work well. My companion and I are getting along really well, even though hes from Uruguay. No just kidding hes awesome because hes from Uruguay. Hes about to go back home after his 2 years, but he stays working hard. 

Well sorry I dont have much to share this week but Im glad to hear youre all doing well.

Love,

Elder Wilson

transferred!

I got transfered! I´m in an area called Cuidadela. It was a super far transfer; Cuidadela borders my last ward. My new companion is from Uruguay and his name is Elder Franco. He was looking through my pictures and he saw one of Covey in a Peñarol jersey and he got very excited about that. He keeps a Uruguay flag in the house hanging there. He´s a super great missionary with a lot of experience. He only has like 3 transfers left counting this one. The cool thing about him is that his strengths are almost exactly my weaknesses. He´s super bold and really good at managing the time. I´m really excited to be able to learn from him in our time as companions. I took some pics but I´ll have to send them next week since te computer isn´t uploading them right.

The ward is great. They love the missionaries and have had a baptism almost every week. I hope to keep that going; it´s a good tradition. But right now we don´t have anyone progressing. I´m sad in a way about my last area. My companion and I both got transfered out. So I know that it doens´t matter how good the new missionaries are, some people will get lost. For example the other day we passed some lady in the street crying and we talked to her and we were going to come back but neither of us knew the address, so she´ll get lost for sure. There was supposed to be a baptism yesterday but it didn´t happen. I know it wasn´t for anything the new missionaries did wrong, I´m just sad I wasn´t there to try to help it.

Today I played soccer for the first time in my life against a bunch of latinos. I´m sure you can imagine how I did remembering my athletic past and my lack of experience. But it was super fun. I left covered in sweat because we´re on the coast of Colombia playing soccer. I almost scored this one goal that was going to be sweet but then I didn´t and that was the best part I think.I´m going to show everyone up next week.

I really have lost a lot of weight here. Unlike the last house this one has a mirror and when I saw it I was very surprised. I look uglier because when fat people loose weight fast it´s gross. But I´m also in perfect condition now to build muscle. I just don´t have any weights or bands or anything, Tips?

Well I don´t have a lot more to say. Just that I´ve walked 40 miles in my 5 days in this area. I´m still struggling to learn the names of the people here. And I haven´t been eating dinner since I´m fresh out of money. But don´t worry I know how bad that is and we already set up a dinner contract. We´re just waiting for the cash to arrive.

Love you all!

Elder Wilson

This week was very good. We've been finding a lot of new investigators, which for us is a slow but rewarding process. I use being a white guy to my advantage. The other day some child yelled to us from in a tree that we should go visit this house right there. I think it was a reference from God but we ignored it. But yesterday we went to the house and I yelled in (we don't knock doors much, you just yell because the windows and doors are always open) and the lady pulled chairs outside for us before we said anything. We asked why and she said it was because she likes the way gringos talk hahaha. But turns out she seemed to like the message too. People here really have a good time with gringos. For example we had stake conference with Elder Camargo of the 70. He likes to joke about gringos a lot, it was hilarious. He wanted me to read a scripture and he yelled at me "hey gringo! read!" and then he was like "oh I mean Elder. The mission president will kill me." It was hilarious. Plus he said even the gringos have hope of the resurrection. He was also messing with the gringos when he visited us in the CCM. He's a great guy, very spiritually powerful.

The downside of this week is that it was blazing hot. Even hotter than usual. The thing was that is was really sunny. I'd be okay but it really efects the missionary work. It's so hot that all the street vendors and such just sit there. I think the missionaries are the only ones that work in these times. But we walk slower I noticed, and when we get to a lesson it is soooo hard to stay awake for being so tired and so hot. But we're looking into a house that comes with AC so that will be a huge blessing if it works out.

We're having changes this week. Cambios. I don't know what they're called in English. But I think my companion goes and I stay. We'll see what happens. I'm excited and nervous. The problem is that your companion becomes your friend and then transfers and done. I think they're called transfers in English.

We've been thinking really hard about what we can do to get more investigators and use our brains to our advantage in the mission. We'd kind of fallen into the trap of always doing the same. But this week we're going to start English and Bible classes. It's going to be great. Or if we don't start this week it will be this month. We haven't been able to have ward council lately so we'll have to do that first. Elder Camargo told us that as missionaries we need to baptize every week. The standard here is very high. I just pray for God's help to meet it. Please pray for the same thing. That I can get a baptism every week to obey the council of the Lord's servants. I love you and hope you're all doing great.

Love,

Elder Wilson

susana's baptism

susana and part of her family and her neighbor and the guy from the ward that did the baptism

Well this week was really great. Obviously the best part was Susana and Victoria's baptism. It was so great to see them take that step. It was really hard for Susana because of her arm, but she did it anyways. I love her example of faith. I  think I'm always going to remember this experience because of the was it shows the power of the gospel in people's lives. In the first place she called us. That was a miracle. Then she got baptized even though she had a broken arm and it was very painful for her. But she never complained about it. It was actually cool to see a baptism where the person didn't get fully wet and there were 2 guys in the water to help her. Awesome first baptism.

Benedicta and Hernando didn't arrive at their baptism this week. They have 2 main doubts. One is that it's really fast, and their family has been saying stuff to them about how they should take their time. The other is that Benedicta thinks that Hernando might mess up again after his baptism with the Word of Wisdom. So we're really going to work hard with them to get baptized the 26th of this month. They keep saying they'll do it then. The good thing is that the ward members really want to help and so they all are going to do visits. That will be really great for them to feel that support.

Joyce and Derwin have been struggling with their commitments. We were going to stop teaching them again but they came to church this week. They read the Book of Mormon together every day, and Derwin told us that he's secretly saved up enough money to take out their papers for marriage. So they just need to actually do it, and also save up money for the actual marriage.

The watrd members have been making great progress. It's like a speeling giant that just woke up. They're moving really slowly, but at least they're thinking and talking about references now. And they're working on doing their home teaching, especially to the new members. It's really scary to turn new members over to the ward when they don't visit them at all.

I love you guys, and I pray for you. Let me know if you have a problem or a doubt that I can help you with.

Love,

Elder Wilson

weekly letter

First off, I got the package this week. Thanks! It was really cool to get. My favorite part is the photos of the family. I show them to the investigators and members all the time. Also the suckers are very good.

This week was great because of the conference. I loved all the talks about missionary work. They really helped me out with some questions I have. Sometimes I don't do a very good job with talking to everybody because I feel worried about getting to an appointment on time. so I really liked in President Eyring's talk in Priesthood when he talked about the Good Samiritan. I had never thought about it that way, so it was good to be able to learn from the Bible in new ways that directly answer questions. It looks like I should forego arriving on time to help more people.

Krysti - in terms of eating right, I eat the same thing every day so I can let you know. For breakfast I eat oats in milk and sometimes yogurt or a fruit. The oats I eat are like oatmeal but hard, so I eat with a spoon. I also mix in chocolate milk mix so it tastes delicious. For lunch, it's whatever the members give us, but really it's just always rice, beans, meat, and sometimes a delicious sancocho soup. For dinner, it's sandwiches or pasta. So I think I eat very well actually. no sweets because the sweets aren't very good.

I'm pretty sad because Joyce and Derwin haven't come to church a few weeks in a row, so this week we're going to stop teaching them. I hope they come next week so we can pick up where we leave off. They've been working so hard to make changes in their life, but they aren't obeying in certain things. That is easily the hardest part of being a missionary. When you love people but they don't choose the path that brings the most happiness because of some trials along the way. But really that's not just investigators. Think how many times each of you have chosen the easy path over the correct path. The good news is that everyone can repent and come back to Christ and receive happiness (Alma 36).

We have the goal of 4 baptisms this Saturday. Pray for Susana, victoria, Benedicta, y Hernando. Two of them already did their interview so we're just going to work to make sure that nothing too bad happens this week.

Love,

Elder Wilson