June 26, 2008 - Harry, your hands are freezing!

Hello one and all! It's been another great week here in the oven, er... Tucson that is. Yes, it has been hot, very very hot. And they say that July is hotter than June. I happened to be scanning a New Era and found a trivia question "Which Mission has the hottest average July temperature at 102 degrees?" The Answer: The Great Arizona Tucson Mission.

I'm writing you today because on Monday (our normal preperation day) we were at the Marriott in Tucson helping at the Spina Bifita conference. We missionaries were assigned to help out with the 13-19 age group and it was a truly amazing experience. It's amazing to see how happy these kids are despite their difficulties and causes one to reflect upon what is truly important in his life. We basically spent the day sitting with them and socializing and helping them with various activities.

The work is amazing here. We set a couple of baptismal dates with Maria and Daisy Garcia. Daisy is the daugher and Maria is the Mom. Maria's brother got baptized a couple of years ago and for the past few weeks he's been reading the Book of Mormon to them over the phone. So when we came over for the first time they were around 1 Nephi 8 or something like that. They're awesome and super prepared.

So many of my baptisms have been just like the Garcia family. The Lord does all the real work and then he drops them in our lap. We just have to go out and find them. At the beginning this worried me. Am I doing everything right? Am I not a very good teacher? How come the only baptisms I have are ones where the Lord has done all the real work?

But then the word from D&C 4 really start to sink in "The field is white already to harvest". And then you really start to realize your own inadequacies and that the Lord is in charge of His own work and he's just letting you along for the ride because He loves you.

I began as as "convincer" (which is miserable work because you fail 99% of the time) but have been changed to a "harvester" (which is beautiful work because you realize that the Lord is really in charge of it).

Last week we had a baptism of a 9 year old boy named Christian. This last Sunday he got confirmed. He was really really excited to recieve "my Holy Ghost" (As he always calls it). It was an amazing experience to see him confirmed but there was a slight problem. He was a little confused and thought that everyone had their own "Holy Ghost" that went around with them and protected them after they recieved it (kind of like a guardian angel). Well we went over to his house and tried to explain how there is only one Holy Ghost but many people can feel his influence. He has a slight learning impairment and was really not understanding at all.

I tried working through it with him for a good twenty minutes and ended up trying to relate it to the sun (Only in one place but we can all feel it's influence all over the world). Finally I thought I had got the point across and he truly understood! "So is that all very clear, Christian?"
"I think so, so you're saying that we can't feel the Holy Ghost at night?"
I guess I wasn't born to be a teacher.

Parents, if you ever feel like sending a package, some appreciated items might be:

Granola
Any sort of organic food-bar (Preferably one low in soy content).
Pictures (especially ones showing the changes you've done to the house.)
Cait and Brig's talks.
Panda licorice

And whatever else you might find appropriate. Well I hope this email was sufficiently long (I'm tired of getting bombarded with emails telling me that my emails are too short).

I love you all! Thank you for your love and support and letters!

Love,

Elder Ben Wilson