October 8, 2007 - El Paso, TX

Hello everyone!

I'm here in El Paso, Texas, and everything is going great. I don't really know where to begin, it's been a crazy pretty experience here. I guess I'll start with my apartment.

My apartment is the ugliest, smallest, dirtiest, most rundown piece of junk you've ever seen, I absolutely love it. We live behind a bakery, and the apartment has one bathroom and one other room, which is kind of a bedroom-family room-kitchen, combo. On a side note, someone has been breaking into it during the day so we're looking at other apartments today. The break in is the randomest thing ever. We were with the other missionaries in the zone so we know it wasn't one of them, but when we came back, one light was on, the phone was knocked over, one banana was missing, and someone left a pastry and tried to cook a giant cookie in our oven. The banana was the only thing missing. Soooooooo random. Lots of bums, drug dealers, and prostitutes work on the street on the other side of the bakery so who knows what one of them did in a drugged up stupor.

It's all good though. I never really feel in danger or anything so don't worry, family.

My companion is a stud, his name is Elder Thompson. He's got lots of experience under his belt, only four more months. He's been a DL, ZL, and trainer before and he really knows what he's doing. He speaks the language really really well and works really really hard. He's about 5'0" 120 lbs, and everyone calls him "pollito" (little chicken) because he looks kind of like a little chicken. Seriously he's a stud and I'm learning tons from him.

The language is a struggle at this point. A lot of times Elder Thompson will start a contact and they'll be interested because they're listening to what he's saying, and then I'll start struggling with my broken Spanish and they lose interest. Not going to lie, it's a little frustrating.

But the work is going crazy here, the Lord has really prepared this city, and the people are really receptive and humble. We've got a goal of 15 baptisms this transfer and I think we might hit it.

We're teaching some AWESOME people here. The Garcias are a super cool family, and Brother Garcia's brother is listening in as well. The Garcias are getting baptized this Saturday and the brother has a date scheduled for the week after. It's super cool because he used to be a gangster and he's covered in tattoos. Not gonna lie, it'll be cool to see him in white.

Ok one quick story about the Garcia family. The brothers work and live together. Things were going well with work for them and they moved into a new, bigger house, and unfortunately, stopped going to church. The Monday after the first day of church they missed, the lost their jobs. Since then they've come back to God a lot and humbled themselves a lot more. Total pride cycle, I couldn't believe how clear cut it was.

Tons of really cool people, though, who are super ready. I think as long as I stay in El Paso I'm going to get to spend a good amount of time in the water.

By the way my new address is:
3304 Ft. Blvd. #1
El Paso, TX 79930

As far as how much Spanish/English I speak, most people here are actually bilingual but a lot more comfortable in Spanish so I speak mostly in Spanish and occasionally in Spanish. We're actually in charge of both a Spanish and English ward but English Speaking people are hard-hearted so we just don't proseletyze(?) to them too much.

One guy, Jonathan, is old and pretty much crazy but he wanted to get baptized, until a Catholic priest came along and told him he could drink and smoke and still be in the Catholic church. I got love for Catholics but this priest was a messenger from the Devil because Jonathan didn't even used to drink or smoke but now he does. I don't understand it, he found out it was "okay" from this priest and just went crazy and STARTED drinking and smoking even though he hadn't done so for years.

President Higham is seriously one of the coolest guys I've ever met, he's an awesome awesome mission president and I'm sad that I probably won't get to have him the entire time.

So Dad, your boy got called as the new apostle! That's way cool. He gave a good talk on Sunday.

By the way conference was awesome! How about Elder Holland throwing it DOWN! Speaking about the trinity "You won't find it in the Bible, because it's not true!" buuuurrrrrrn! I loved Elder Bednar's talk to. And Elder Wirthlin was AMAZING even though he almost died halfway through. All of it was good I loved it.

Well that's about it from the ugliest, dirtiest city on earth. I love the people here but wow, this city is a hole.

Gotta run, love you all!

Elder Wilson