July 28

Hey GRANDPA!

Wow I still can´t believe that you are a grandpa.

Well anyways this week has been a great week for a lot of hard work. This week they finished off the celebration for the virgin Mary and started an even bigger one for Santa Ana, the patron saintess of Baranoa. It has been very interesting for me to see the difference in religious practice. Lots of parties. When the religious part ended they closed off the streets and put out tents and boxes of beer to pass the weekend, so the work was a little slow again.

If you´ll all remember my last baptism, Jeimi Bolivar. Se has been having a lot of difficulty in going to church. She hasn´t been for like 2 months, and it has been really hard to see it happen. We have worked super closely with her, but haven´t yet had success. We have visited her with other young women, including the young women did a family night just for her. We have tried working with her family again to get her excited, but it hasn´t worked. So that has been very hard for me to see, but we still have hope. The branch president is going to interview her this week to see if there is something that ipedes her from feeling comfortable in church. WE will see.

One time my friend Ryan Allen wrote me from his mission and said that when you are in a hard area and there is a ton of opposition, you feel the best because it´s like being on the winning sidfe in a huge battle when things aren´t going well. That´s how I feel now. There are a lot of difficulties and problems and we aren´t having success like anyone wants, but I have never felt so happy to work and so glad to be where I am. There are transfers in a couple weeks and I will feel really sad if I leave here because there is still so much I want to do here. I have really come to love this branch, both the members and the challenges that they present (like with their callings).

We have a family with 2 young men named the Ospino family. Last week the parents got separated for some problems, but now they´re back toether. WE hope they get married and they go to church. The mom and the two young men have gone and the mom is the one who announced that she wants to get baptized, but she just needs to get married first (remember Yormitt? Same boat, but this boat won´t sink like Yormitt).

Well I love you all and I love the Lord. Yesterday I was able to pass the Sacrament and felt so happy that all the members there in the church were taking the sacrament, even when there are many who don´t go to church, and that you all are also going to church and taking the sacrament. I know that when we do that, we are purified by the Spirit and we become a little more like Christ.

Love,

Elder Wilson

July 21

This week has been a very interesting week, due to a huge festival that they have been doing this week for the Virgin from Carmen, or the Virgin Mary as represented in the area called Carmen. Contacting this week has been super hard because everyone became even more catholic for the festival and didn´t want to listen. Plus I got a bad cold that made it a little harder to walk around but it´s okay, it all went fine in the end.

This week we also had a fun situation which is that Tuesday we woke up and there were worms all over in the house. It looked like they were coming from the bathroom but I didn´t know where, so i cleaned up all the worms and then got frustrated when I saw that they just kept coming. Then when I was using the bathroom a worm fell from the ceiling and landed on me, so I realized that they were coming from there. To make a long story short, turns out that a rat was in the ceiling and died above the bathroom, so there was a horrible smell in the house and worms eating the decomposed rat. But now it´s all cleaned up and there aren´t any more worms for now.

We had interviews with the mission president this week, which is always a highlight. They are putting a huge enphasis on learning English for the latin elders, so the mission president´s wife quizzed my companion and he was super traumatized. I feel but but I was laughing like the whole time, but it motivated me to help him more to learn English.

Sprry that I really don´t have much to say but as long as the work keeps crawling along I don´t have much to say. We stopped visiting Yormitt, Isabel, the Varela family, Karina, and all the other people who were so excited but then Satan won over and now don´t care about the message. It has been hard for me to see that happen with these people that I love so much but we had to move on because there are others. Please pray so that we can find more people who are prepared to listen to and accept the message.

Elder Wilson

7048 -  some members made us "salchipapas," a delicious fast food they make with french fries, sausage, and cheese.

7052 - the members that made us the food

7054 - A member cutting some branches from his tree for a service projest where we helped him dispose of the branches (since we can´t climb trees or use machete)

July 13

I got the package! Thanks so much, I loved to get it. The pictures really made me miss you all though! I remember you said you also sent a letter apart but that I didn´t get yet.

The Colombian countryside, I think it´s super beautiful. The only problem is that they are in a huge drought

This awesome washout riverbed that we walked through when we did a service project with the branch president and his family in their little farm

My companion and I on the river bank

My shoes have holes in the bottom and this is what my feet look like after walking over sand all day

This week was yet another great week to work hard in the work of salvation. My time here in Baranoa has been very interesting. I don´t think there has been another time in my life where i have worked so hard and so efficiently. During the past few months, the Lord has blessed me to loose myself entirely in the work. I love working here. Yet despite all that, some would say that I havent had much success here since in about 5 months of hard work i have only had one baptism. But really there has been a lot of progress in reactivation and the work of the leaders. we have really dedicated ourselves to strengthening what is already here, since there are a little more than 300 members in this village but only bout 80 attend church. But I have really loved the work these past few weeks since I know that even though i might not be seeing a lot of fruits, i am fighting a good cause and I am working for the Lord.

A couple of questions.

I read a letter from you ll a few weeks ago that said "Michelle and her 3 little kids." Did Michelle have another kid??? Also is Cameron going to live with you all in the house or on campus?

Also Krysti thanks so much for the family history work, every little bit helps.

As far as investigators go, we are finding a lot of new ones because some of the old ones are not progressing anymore. Andres isn´t as interested as before, Isabel is also falling out of the interest as well, and we are trying really hard to replace them. In all, the work goes along well but it needs a lot more to have all the success.

Wow i ran out of things to say, oher than that I was going to ask for suggestions on an object lesson for my district. I want to talk about problem solving a little bit, and related with that diligence. I want to help them see that there are a lot of tools to solve problems, so we just need to look for the solution in stead of using excuses. 

Love you all,

Elder Wilson

July 7

  Elder gabriel and I with Luis and Dina, some investigators, on his last day here

 here we are with Isabel Varela, who we always talk about

Wow i´m so happy for the family and for Brooke and sam!!! The baby looks super adorable, i teared up a little when I saw the pictures. You have to show her pictures of me every now and then so that she will recognize me when I´m back.

Well i´m doing great here in colombia. this week i had a great experience in sacrament meeting, in the teestimonies. There is a member named alfonso Martinez who was branch president about 6 years ago. when they released him he never went to church again. We really had to work with him a ton, but he has gone to church for 2 weeks now. Yesterday all his family chared their testimonies. His wife talked about how she had felt super alone for all those years, but is now super happy again. Their son is like 10 years ald and started to share his testimony but started to cry and ran off. really it was super marvillous to see the whole family in church again, together. It made me feel so happy to participate in the work of salvation, with families. I might or might not have cried as well.

there was a great family in church that we found this week. The husband/father didn´t go, but the mom and her 2 kids went. In Gospel Principles class she stood up to persent herself and said that she has plans to et baptized very soon. She has a date for August 2nd  and is super excited.

Sorry i´m a little short on time and i don´t know much else to say about this week. my companion has had some difficulties with adjusting to the new way of doing things in this mission, but we are slowly progressing there. the area has been really affected by it and i´m kind of worried about it, but we are just taking things one step at a time.

I love you all.

Elder Wilson

June 23

Well I'm glad to hear that you are all doing well over there in Hebgen, I love how beautiful it is over there. This week has been an exciting one for us here in the mission, we had an awesome zone conference. We talked a lot about how to help the temple construction. About 4 years ago they announced the temple, and they already have baught the grounds, but other than that nothing has really happened here. I'm about ready to grab a shovel next P-Day and head over to temple grounds to get started on the work. 

But they helped us to see that there is another way. We need to use the booklet My Family. They have just barely given us the booklet and we now get to fill it out with the information and also get all the recent converts and less actives to do the same. When we do that, we help the bishops augment their new indicator of members who send their family names to the temple, and this helps pressure the work for the temple. 

I am excited to fill out my book, but I need a little help. I have the information from my 4 generation chart, but I need more stuff. I don't really remember at all my great grandparents, so if you can send me a couple short stories about them it would help me with the book. I suppose you all have the book there to see what I need to fill it out. I need pictures of each person there with a space for a picture, like parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. I would love those photos, I can print them out here. And stories, and information about my grandparents' siblings and great grandparents' siblings. Sorry if that's a lot, but it will help me to fill out my book and be a good example for these people here.

The Lord is really doing a ton to hasten this work. They talked a lot about the importance of teaching tithing really well to less active members and converts, so that they can all recieve the blessings of tithing. They told us that new missionaries now recieve a 7 hour course on their last day of the mission about self sufficience and how to adapt to life after the mission. The church has plans to stop expanding until it can strengthen what we already have, like the district in our mission that isnt a stake yet. Really I am so grateful for the huge blessing of being a missionary in this super exciting time in the history of God's kingdom.

Well pray hard so that Andrés can get baptized this week or the next, I feel bad since so much time has gone by without a baptism here. I love you all and hope you are having a great summer.

Elder WIlson

June 16

Pictures of the Varela family. They gave us lunch today, a delicious cow tail soup. No seriously, delicious.

Hello all, I hope you are enjoying your time in Hebgen and are having lots of fun.

This week was another week for a lot of learning. We did everthing possible to di visits with members but almost all of our plans fell through at the last minute, so we got stuck doing the visits without them. But at least we recieved some refferals this week, so there is progress in the branch.

For a long time now we have been teaching Isabel Varela, who has been to church a lot, reads a lot the Book of Mormon, has a testimony, but has a hard time putting aside her catholic traditions. We have a lot of faith that she can be baptized the 28th of this month, and we are doing everything possible to help. She already lives the commandments, she knows its right, but needs a little more confidence in taking that decision. It is kind of tricky though since she got married in the Catholic church, and here in this mission that counts but we have to see proof. But she want to the catholic church and I guess there was a fire and the records were burned. So it looks like she will have to get married again, which here is like a class a struggle. So we´ll start that process again.

The streets have been surprizingly calm for the world cup, so until now it hasn´t really affected the proselyting. No one wants to talk with us during the game, so we go out and work in the morning and have our studies during game time. But that´s only on game days anyways. 

Yormitt hasn´t had any progress in helping her partner decide to marry her, and I think she´s getting really discouraged since she hasn´t gone to church in a few weeks. I feel super worried about her since she was so excited and always read the book of mormon but now for the past 3 weeks she hasn´t gone to church. We also have faith that she will get baptized the 28th of this month, but it will take a miracle to help her partner gabriel decide to get married.

Andrés is still planning on also getting baptized the 28th of this month. I think he is the most sure baptism for this month. He´s 20 years old and says that he wants to be a missionary.  He also has a testimony and hasn´t missed a week of church since even before we started teaching him. He went to a lot of different churches when he was young, looking for the truth, but never found it until he came here, with us. (amos 8:11-12). The only difficulty with him is that he doenst like to take big decisions beforehand. FOr example a couple weeks ago he decided to go from Baranoa to Barranquilla and back in bike, and he did it like 2 days after. So that´s the challenge, but we also have faith that he´ll be ready for the 28th.

Well I love you all. As far as something that I need from Hebgen, no I´m fine thanks. Also how´s Brooke´s pregnancy coming along? I think about that sometimes, I guess the baby´s practically crowning by now.

Elder Wilson

the plague

I accidentally sneezed on my orange

No, just kidding. This is one of my favorite Colombian fruits, called granadilla. You slurp it up, mucus and all. Super delicious

This week has been crazy because everyone in the zone is sick. We have 5 companionships, so it´s a small zone, but 3 of them haven´t been working this week because of sickness. Of the other two (my companion and I and the zone leaders) the missionaries are sick but are working anyways. My companion has had a terrible cold for over a week but keeps trooping on. He´s great. But luckily I´m still healthy and happy.

The work with the members should be progressing a ton this week, and that means that there will be a lot more baptisms. They finally called and sustained a branch mission leader this week, who was once the branch president. He will be a great resourse for us. Also, a missionary from the branch returned home after his mission this week, and he has a ton of experience and will help a lot. His name is Ley Gonzales. Plus yesterday my companion and I did like a training in the house-chapel for the members about missionary work. We wrote down everyones schedule for when they can do visits with us, and we taught them how. Then we gave every single person a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the commitment to give it to a friend and invite them to listen to us. We even did practices with everyone of how to talk with them to naturally share the gospel. So now we have to pray that the members can follow through. We are going to talk with them on Sunday to see how it went.

Other that that, this week should be fun since I have like one dollar to get by for the whole week. I´ll probably loose another few kilos.

Yormitt is vascilating between marriage and separation, but is leaning towards marriage. We really haven´t talked to her much this week, since she hass to make the decision herself. But I am a little worried because she didn´t go to church this week or last week. That´s  how they start to forget their testimonies. There is a member here who was baptized in January but now says that he never even had a testimony of the Book of Mormon. But I know he had one and is just doubting it now. We are doing all we can to help him regain it but it´s hard because the members haven´t visited or anything. But like I said, that should change this week.

Other than that, we are teaching a great young man named Andrés Nuñez. He is 20 years old, so he´s a future missionary. He heard about the church through his girlfriend. He actually went to church like 3 times before we first visitied him, because we always thought that he was one of the sster missionaries´ inverstigators. But he always reads the Book of Mormon, adn he knows  it´s true. He loves the church and wants to be a missionary. The only problerm is that he has an issue with commitment and doesn´t want to definitively accept a baptismal date. He has one for the 28th of this month, but always sayd something like "I can´t tell you for sure because who knows what can happen before then" or "no I´m just an impulsive person, so if I want to before that day I´ll do it." I really think he can reach this goal, but it´s going to require a lot of work and help from the branch.

Well I hope you all have a great week in Hebgen, and find a great moose for me.

Elder Wilson