Merry Christmas to You All!

Hello friends of Ben. This is Ben's mom, the webmaster. Ben didn't write a regular letter this week. He wrote us a handwritten letter. He is now back near El Paso where he has frequent opportunities to revisit Chapparal, New Mexico, the trailer park city where he spent many months early in his mission. This is what he wrote:

"This year, I am asking all of my friends for a very special Christmas present.

As you may know, I am a missionary for the LDS church serving in El Paso, Texas. About a year ago I had the opportunity to teach a family and help them come unto Christ.  Just recently I went back and visited this single mother and her daughter and found them in despair and distanced from the teachings of Jesus Christ.  The daughter had even recently attempted to commit suicide.

I noted that they had no friends to help them stay firm in the church or give them comfort.

Upon returning home from seeing this I wrote this poem.

What I want for Christmas is for you to read this poem and reflect upon how you might better help the down-trodden and those in despair and then put that into action. Then write me a letter and let me know how it went. Thank you so much and may God bless you in your efforts to serve others in this Christmas season. Sincerely, Elder Ben Wilson."
He included this address: 1840 East River Road, Suite 102, Tucson, Arizona 85718

Here's his poem, and I think it's pretty darn good!

Beyond the Gate:
A Poem for Those in Zion
by Elder Ben Wilson

The air is brisk, the stars are out
And lights are glowing dim.
I watch atop the city walls
And see the peace within.
The town is safe from fear and harm
And all can act as though
There was no raging war without,
Inside—no fear of foe.

I feel content, my heart at peace,
To think what I have done.
For I’ve brought some within the walls
Before the setting sun.
I've saved them from the enemy
Who in the darkness hides.
He seeks to hurt, to kill and break---
The father of all lies.

But as I watch, I hear approach
The sound of hurried feet,
And see a single, lonely lamp
Below me in the street.
I call out “The woods are dark,
The hour is growing late.
Tell me now what brings you here
Before the city gate?

“I beg you not to leave behind
The safety of the light,
For the enemy is on the move
And watches in the night.
He seeks for souls who dare to leave
The protection of this place.
Do not go out—do not go out!
Don’t make this choice in haste.”

The footsteps cease, the lantern’s raised
And through the night I see
A young girl’s tear-stained, shadowed face,
A face well known to me.
It’s the orphan girl who weeks ago
I’d brought into the light,
Now standing there with lamp in hand.
My heart stops at the sight.

Her face is set, her eyes on guard;
I see there fear and doubt.
Her fists clench hard,
I hear her say,
“What enemy without?
It’s not so bad, the place I was
Before you brought me here.
I had my friends to comfort me,
To bring me needed cheer.
Your walled-off city is too cold,
I have no friends in there.
So thank you for the pleasant stay.
Don’t worry, have no fear;
I know you tried to help me…but
I must be on my way.”

I try to speak, to yell, to plead,
But fear my throat has bound.
So through the gates into the night
She slips without a sound.
For days I pray and watch and wait
For a miracle from above,
Until I finally realize
The miracle is love.

And then my prayer becomes a plea
For strength in present need
And with some fear, but ever hope,
I mount upon my steed.
I charge into that bitter realm
And tear on through the night--
Keep riding, riding without heed,
Till I see morning’s light.
Then through those dim and fragile beams
I see upon the ground
A lonely, sorry, broken child;
My orphan girl is found.

Her face is lined, her cloak is torn,
Her arms show battle scars.
Her hope and light and laugh and love
Gone out like dampened fires.
Upon the ground, I bend my knee
And give the girl my arm.
“It’s over now, the night is passed;
Come where you’re safe from harm.
The world is cruel outside the gates
And though now all looks black,
You have a place within the walls.
Oh, orphan girl, come back.”

Merry Christmas to All Friends of Ben!! Here are a few recent pics!

See you around kid....No you won't

Hello one and all! It's hard to believe it's been another week. This past week I had the opportunity to go on exchanges to El Centro and to Chaparral, two areas which I've served in previously. It was fun to go back and see some of the people I had taught and baptized before, but also sobering, in some cases, to see what's come of it in the past year. I won't mention to much here in this email but there's a hand-written letter forthcoming. It's already written and everything I just need to get some pictures together and send it off.

By the way that granola is AMAZING. Thank you so much Mom. The assistants are on exchanges with us today and they had some of it for breakfast and are fully converted to Wilson family home-made granola.

We have a baptism coming up this saturday for a woman named Olga. She's AMAZING! One day she just decided that there was something missing in her life, she describes it as "Being alive, but not living". Well the next day the missionaries knocked her door and she's been AWESOME ever since. Every single lesson with her is a spiritual brouhaha. I'm reminded every day that there really are people out there who "are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it".

One thing I've developed in this area is a lot more respect for English elders. We do quite a bit of English work here... And it's hard! We've got a tiny tiny area in Spanish and a HUGE English area and we have the same amount of work in both.

Q&A time:
Yes we live in an apartment complex.
Yes I'm going to send you a ton of pictures today.
I do have my camera and I'm about to fill it up so I'll let you upload all the pictures from the media disk and then send it back.
As for Christmas... I want one really big present, but I'll be sending that in the snail mail letter.
If people want to send me presents, I want:
Ties
Socks
Uh... some cool Christmas cds? Especially talks. I love talks. Especially Neal A Maxwell, Jeffrey Holland, and James E. Faust. But feel free to send anything that would be good.
Oh yeah and I want some SIGNED "The Inkeeper's Wife"s to give to some investigators, converts, and such. Around 20-30 would be appreciated. (If at all possible, I don't know if you still have left overs.) People went crazy over the signed copies last year.

Well anyways that's about it for this weeks edition. I'm excited to talk to you all on Christmas. Parents, expect a hand-written letter soon.

Love,

Elder Ben Wilson

We're Detecting an Alarming Level of Methane in Your Oxygen Supply!

Hello everybody! I can barely remember what I wrote last week so I'll probably repeat some stuff starting with: I'm here in El Paso! We're in charge of two wards. One is English and the other is Spanish. We had two food appointments with English families and one appointment with a Spanish family. The food was delicious in all three homes and I was SUPER stuffed by the end of the day. Speaking of which I'm in full car and I can already feel myself getting fatter.

This morning we played a little bit of tennis and a little bit of basketball as well. There aren't any real tennis players in the zone so I took the crown and then of course basketball was basketball.

By the way Matute is not a Polynesian name although it does kind of sound like that. Elder Matute, my companion, was born in Honduras and grew up in Florida and he says that the name is eventually from Spain. He speaks perfect Spanish and English and is an all-around stud. He's widely known as one of the best teachers in the mission and one of the easiest people to get along with.

El Paso is way different than Tucson. I forgot how NICE the people are around here. Even the white people! I think the Mexicans rub off on them and they're just nicer.

Oh by the way, my address is:

1215 Country Club rd. #7
Santa Teresa, NM, 88008

Oh yeah, you'll notice that we live in New Mexico. About 50 yards from the border between the two states and our area is half-Texas, half-New Mexico.

Tonight I get to go on exchanges to Chaparral! I miss that area so much and it's going to be cool to be able to see my converts again! And to see the golf course that I built in the yard! One of the greatest things I learned in that area is how to enjoy anything. To turn lemons into lemonade as they say. At one point I decided "I can't stop the dust storms from coming, so I'm going to love them." And I found a way to do it! You go knock doors during the dust storms and when people answer you say "It's crazy out here could you let us in for a minute?!?" and then teach an awesome lesson in their house. I can't explain how but a part of me really misses rabid dogs running everywhere and dust storms and not having anything nearby and being able to name every piece of vegetation in the town. So needless to say, I'm excited to go back.

But sorry, you probably want to hear more about where I am now. Well you've got two extremes. There's west side El Paso and Santa Teresa which are quite wealthy and, not surprisingly, don't have much work in them, and then there's Sunland park which is dirt poor and dirty and is full of investigators and lots of work.

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting in the Spanish ward. It went well. I shamelessly recycled all of the good jokes I have ever told in any talk. The ward especially liked the story of when Mom forgot to tell me that I was going to give a talk and ran a piece of paper to me at the last minute that said "Ben, you're giving a talk today, here it is."

I focused my remarks on the miracle of The Restoration and how it's spreading throughout the world. I don't quite know why but when people hear "There were 250,000 convert baptisms in the world last year!" They tend to get really excited about missionary work. I guess it feels good to feel like you're winning. (And we ARE winning!)

Well folks I was going to share one more experience but as soon as I started typing it down it felt too sacred to share. But when I get back from my mission ask me about Hermana Acosta and her sister.

Thank you all so much for the pictures and emails, I really appreciate it. It really is hard when you don't feel like you're getting any support from home (Something I've never gone through but have seen a lot with other missioanries) and so I truly am grateful for the time and effort that all of you put into writing me.

The work is going well here. It's good to be back in El Paso. Take care all!

Love,

Elder Ben Wilson