Hello everybody!
Things are going great here in El Paso! Just to clear up, I recieved everything, so you all can stop worrying about things getting stolen, lost, etc. Mom, Dad, the package was very much appreciated; especially the books! I've given out a few to some missionaries and one to Bishop Alva and the Bishop loved them! He actually asked me to ask if he could get some at a discounted price or something because he'd like to give them out to all the youth in the ward.
Grammy Marilyn, I also got, and very much appreciated, your letter, complete with pictures of the new house! It's comforting to know that I'm not going to be the lone Texan of the family!
Things are going very well here. Last night I slept walked for the first time in my life! I woke up in the middle of the night and my companion was saying "Hey, why did you turn the lights on?" I said "What the heck are you talking about, I just woke up!" But apparently I turned the lights on and said some mildly crazy stuff.
Speaking of mildly crazy stuff, Elder Thompson always says weird stuff in the mornings when he's not fully awake. The other day he told me that he was worried that we have a dinosaur in our vent. I think we're wearing ourselves out to the point of hallucenation!
So things have slowed down a little bit around here. We went over to the Carrillo house last night and found out that the 12 year old, Luis, just started going to a different church with his friends and then five minutes later the grandma came stumbling in drunk as a skunk. She passed out on the couch, and I really wanted to write "No tomare mas" on her hand but my companion wouldn't let me.
The other day I was on exchanges in the DL's area and had a funny experience. We went finding most of the day but didn't really find anyone that was golden until finally, when we were in a park in the late afternoon, we talked to a man, Jason who had almost been baptized ten years earlier and was searching for the truth. Really awesome, really prepared. Elder Guymon, the elder I was on exchanges with, started to get really excited. After teaching an awesome lesson we asked if we could come by his home and teach him a more on another day and he said
"yeah, that would be great. The only thing is, I live kinda far away, on Hamilton and Dyer (right in the middle of my area)" OH man! Elder Guymon was MAD! Anyways now we're teaching him and he's progressing really well.
Anyways I'm out of time, but I love all of you so much! Thanks to everyone who wrote me! Family, I love and appreciate you and I'm praying for you every day!
Love,
Elder Wilson
Monday, August 18, 2008
November 26, 2007
Hello hello hello! I'm starting to feel like I got transfered to Greenland! It's freezing here!
Everything is going great out here as usual. I had a great Thanksgiving. In the morning all the missionaries met together and we had a giant turkeybowl, and then Elder Thompson and I ate a nice big dinner with a new convert family.
Pedro Mayorga got baptized on Saturday which was amazing. A really good, short, powerful baptismal service. It's taken us a lot of hard work to get him into the water, but his testimony really is strong so I"m excited to see him in the church.
I've learned a valuable lesson as I've been able to attend so many baptismal services out here. Sometimes we confuse emotion with the spirit. This is easy to understand considering that many of our spiritual experiences are very emotional as well as we learn new, profound truths and experience landmark changes in our lives.
But for me, as I attend these baptisms, I often have the opportunity to feel the Spirit enter the room in a way that is largely detached from emotion. The ceremony of the baptism is simple, and very short. At times it is almost awkwardly brief. For me, baptismal ceremonies do not evoke much of an emotional reaction. And yet I always feel the spirit powerfully, testifying that baptism is a necessary part of God's plan, and that through Jesus Christ we truly are given an oportunity to be born again.
This past week I also learned a great lesson on pressing forward with faith. We biked up to visit a new investigator named Vanessa at about 8 o'clock at night, but she, unfortunately, wasn't home. We had two other families that we could visit but they lived on opposite sides of the area and so we were only going to have the chance to visit one of them before the night ended. I said a silent prayer to know which family we should visit but felt like I didn't recieve an answer for either family. I prayed again and pondered the names of the two families again, and again, did not recieve an answer.
I then thought it out, and decided that the Carrillo family needed our help more than the Garcia family, and so I decided we would head down to the Carrillo family, still not having recieved a real confirmation from the Spirit as to whom we should teach. We started off and had barely biked three blocks when we passed Vanessa, the lady who had not been home, walking back towards her home with some groceries that she had just bought. It was then that I recieved a confirmation from the Holy Ghost as to whom we were supposed to teach, and that night we taught and set a baptismal date with Vanessa.
Anyways I'm not sure I've mentioned it yet but it blizzarded here in El Paso and dropped probably six inches of snow with biting winds on Saturday. I wasn't prepared for it at all and didn't have the proper clothes or anything, and we were on bike! I thought that that kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen in El Paso!
I know I left some winter clothes at home, so Mom, if maybe you could send me a scarf or two, maybe one or two of the sweaters that I left, and a pair of gloves, I would really really appreciate it.
I'm really really going to try to send a snail mail letter home tomorrow with some pictures. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera on snowday so maybe I can snag some pictures off of my companion. We shall see.
Thank you Dad for sending all of your letters. I really do love them! And Mom, I really liked your talk.
I'm praying for all of you all the time, especially you, Dad. Mary, Kate, Brig, Steve, Chris, and Caitlin I love hearing from you and especially getting pictures of my wonderful niece and nephews!
Anyways, that's about all I've got to say to the general public. Hopefully I'll have a bit more to say if I get a chance to send off some hand written letters! I love you all you're all amazing! I have so much to be greatful for, with such a wonderful family and such great friends, and an opportunity to be a member of this great church, and to know fo this beautiful gospel.
I love you all, keep writing!
Love,
Elder Wilson
Everything is going great out here as usual. I had a great Thanksgiving. In the morning all the missionaries met together and we had a giant turkeybowl, and then Elder Thompson and I ate a nice big dinner with a new convert family.
Pedro Mayorga got baptized on Saturday which was amazing. A really good, short, powerful baptismal service. It's taken us a lot of hard work to get him into the water, but his testimony really is strong so I"m excited to see him in the church.
I've learned a valuable lesson as I've been able to attend so many baptismal services out here. Sometimes we confuse emotion with the spirit. This is easy to understand considering that many of our spiritual experiences are very emotional as well as we learn new, profound truths and experience landmark changes in our lives.
But for me, as I attend these baptisms, I often have the opportunity to feel the Spirit enter the room in a way that is largely detached from emotion. The ceremony of the baptism is simple, and very short. At times it is almost awkwardly brief. For me, baptismal ceremonies do not evoke much of an emotional reaction. And yet I always feel the spirit powerfully, testifying that baptism is a necessary part of God's plan, and that through Jesus Christ we truly are given an oportunity to be born again.
This past week I also learned a great lesson on pressing forward with faith. We biked up to visit a new investigator named Vanessa at about 8 o'clock at night, but she, unfortunately, wasn't home. We had two other families that we could visit but they lived on opposite sides of the area and so we were only going to have the chance to visit one of them before the night ended. I said a silent prayer to know which family we should visit but felt like I didn't recieve an answer for either family. I prayed again and pondered the names of the two families again, and again, did not recieve an answer.
I then thought it out, and decided that the Carrillo family needed our help more than the Garcia family, and so I decided we would head down to the Carrillo family, still not having recieved a real confirmation from the Spirit as to whom we should teach. We started off and had barely biked three blocks when we passed Vanessa, the lady who had not been home, walking back towards her home with some groceries that she had just bought. It was then that I recieved a confirmation from the Holy Ghost as to whom we were supposed to teach, and that night we taught and set a baptismal date with Vanessa.
Anyways I'm not sure I've mentioned it yet but it blizzarded here in El Paso and dropped probably six inches of snow with biting winds on Saturday. I wasn't prepared for it at all and didn't have the proper clothes or anything, and we were on bike! I thought that that kind of thing wasn't supposed to happen in El Paso!
I know I left some winter clothes at home, so Mom, if maybe you could send me a scarf or two, maybe one or two of the sweaters that I left, and a pair of gloves, I would really really appreciate it.
I'm really really going to try to send a snail mail letter home tomorrow with some pictures. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera on snowday so maybe I can snag some pictures off of my companion. We shall see.
Thank you Dad for sending all of your letters. I really do love them! And Mom, I really liked your talk.
I'm praying for all of you all the time, especially you, Dad. Mary, Kate, Brig, Steve, Chris, and Caitlin I love hearing from you and especially getting pictures of my wonderful niece and nephews!
Anyways, that's about all I've got to say to the general public. Hopefully I'll have a bit more to say if I get a chance to send off some hand written letters! I love you all you're all amazing! I have so much to be greatful for, with such a wonderful family and such great friends, and an opportunity to be a member of this great church, and to know fo this beautiful gospel.
I love you all, keep writing!
Love,
Elder Wilson
November 19, 2007
Hey Mom, you might want to read through this and then prayerfully decide who to forward this on to. Also, feel free to edit.
Hello Everyone! You probably weren't expecting an email so soon but it turns out we're not going to be able to email on Thursday so I have the opportunity to shoot something off really quickly today!
Things are struggling a little bit out here. Our Bishopric here in the 3rd ward is in open rebellion and trying to tell us that we have to postpone all baptisms indefinitely, but besides that everything is great!
I really don't know what's going on with them but for some reason they're freaking out about us baptizing any illegal immigrants, because they think that the Bishop can get in trouble for it or something. I'm 99% sure that that's just false, you can't get in trouble for attending to the spiritual needs of an illegal immigrant, but they are really really fighting us.
Also, one of our awesome recent converts got kicked out of his house because he has a punk stepdad and so he started staying with our WML. Well when this random illegal immigrant witchhunt started, our WML got an (probably accurate) idea that this convert might be an illegal immigrant so he kicked him out on the street and now we haven't seen him for a week and can't find him.
We're trying to tell the Bishop that if he wants to kick illegal immigrants out of the church, we can disintegrate the ward because it's 90% illegals, but he doesn't want to hear it.
So actually the 3rd ward is kinda struggling. Yikes! But I'm sure things will get better!
I'm just trying to keep positive thoughts towards our Bishopric and not harbor any feelings of contention. Which is a struggle.
Anyways. How are things at home? Dad, how's your health? Baby Eva looks really really cute from the pictures I've recieved! Send some more! Did anyone get the question that I sent in the last email? Becausae no one has sent a reply yet.
By the way I taught my first truly SPANGlish lesson the other day. We started talking to her in English, taught a few principles in Spanish, went back to English for a while, and then finished and extended comittments in Spanish. I love it.
Well I don't know what else to say. Our investigators are doing really really well despite the ward.
I'm coming to such a love and appreciation of all of the amazing leaders that we have back home. And I'm coming to appreciate and love my family SO MUCH! You're all amazing. I can't believe I was blessed with such amazing parents who have been such amazing examples of love and Christlike living to me. And amazing siblings who have always been there for me and set amazing examples. And all of my siblings-in-law, too! Oh man I'm so blessed! I love you all so much.
Gotta go now! The gospel is true!
Elder Wilson
Hello Everyone! You probably weren't expecting an email so soon but it turns out we're not going to be able to email on Thursday so I have the opportunity to shoot something off really quickly today!
Things are struggling a little bit out here. Our Bishopric here in the 3rd ward is in open rebellion and trying to tell us that we have to postpone all baptisms indefinitely, but besides that everything is great!
I really don't know what's going on with them but for some reason they're freaking out about us baptizing any illegal immigrants, because they think that the Bishop can get in trouble for it or something. I'm 99% sure that that's just false, you can't get in trouble for attending to the spiritual needs of an illegal immigrant, but they are really really fighting us.
Also, one of our awesome recent converts got kicked out of his house because he has a punk stepdad and so he started staying with our WML. Well when this random illegal immigrant witchhunt started, our WML got an (probably accurate) idea that this convert might be an illegal immigrant so he kicked him out on the street and now we haven't seen him for a week and can't find him.
We're trying to tell the Bishop that if he wants to kick illegal immigrants out of the church, we can disintegrate the ward because it's 90% illegals, but he doesn't want to hear it.
So actually the 3rd ward is kinda struggling. Yikes! But I'm sure things will get better!
I'm just trying to keep positive thoughts towards our Bishopric and not harbor any feelings of contention. Which is a struggle.
Anyways. How are things at home? Dad, how's your health? Baby Eva looks really really cute from the pictures I've recieved! Send some more! Did anyone get the question that I sent in the last email? Becausae no one has sent a reply yet.
By the way I taught my first truly SPANGlish lesson the other day. We started talking to her in English, taught a few principles in Spanish, went back to English for a while, and then finished and extended comittments in Spanish. I love it.
Well I don't know what else to say. Our investigators are doing really really well despite the ward.
I'm coming to such a love and appreciation of all of the amazing leaders that we have back home. And I'm coming to appreciate and love my family SO MUCH! You're all amazing. I can't believe I was blessed with such amazing parents who have been such amazing examples of love and Christlike living to me. And amazing siblings who have always been there for me and set amazing examples. And all of my siblings-in-law, too! Oh man I'm so blessed! I love you all so much.
Gotta go now! The gospel is true!
Elder Wilson
November 15, 2007 - PS
One of our investigators has a doubt about women being able to talk in church (See 1corinthians chapter 14) any thoughts on how to respond?
November 15, 2007 - I tell the men, you have to test drive the. . .
Surprise!
On transfer week P-day is changed to Thursday so that's the reason for no email on Monday. But I'm still alive and well and most importantly, still in El Paso with Elder Thompson. Also, next week P-day will be on Thursday again because of Thanksgiving.
Despite the negative predictions of almost everyone, neither Elder Thompson nor I was transfered. Also, the mission office has made about zero progress on getting us a new apartment so please, keep sending your letters.
Thank you to everyone who wrote me this week, I really do appreciate it.
This week was a great one! First, a story.
One of our recent converts, Eddie, is an absolute stud. We took him out for burgeres one day and while we were eating taught him an after-baptism lesson about the Priesthood. We finish and we're walking out, feeling happy and content, when a man comes running up behind us and says "HEY, HEY GUYS WAIT UP!... If you died today, would you go to heaven?"
For all of you who don't know, this is pretty much the question that all ANTI's start out with. So we were in a little bit of a dilemna. On the one hand we wanted to just rip into this guy and let him know that he was living in the apostasy, etc., etc. But on the other hand, we had Eddie with us and we wanted to keep it civil.
Well sure enough this guy starts opening up some of your stalk ANTI stuff (Jesus isn't brother of Lucifer, Gods, etc. etc.). (These people crack me up. They think that they're actually telling me something new. "You probably don't know this yet because you're not high-up in the church but..." "They probably don't tell you but your church really believes...")
We were really scared for Eddie because he hadn't ever been exposed to any ANTIs and some of these things were new concepts to him. This ANTI could tell Eddie was new and was loving it.
I kept a cool head until he started talking about the trinity, truly one of the stupidest notions ever concieved of within any religion. I kinda got angry and in a semi-calm way taught him about the true nature of the Godhead.
He finishes but saying "Well, you just better check to make sure you're teaching the right Jesus". I'm getting ready to rip into him again when, to the surprise of everyone, Eddy buts in and says "We don't have to check, because we already know." and then bears some FAT testimony.
OH MAN! The anti walked away feeling stunned. It was amazing! Eddy is so solid!
I hope I was able to bring that to life for you because it was awesome!
The Carrillo family is awesome, the four of them are going to be baptized in a couple weeks, and the kids say they all want to be missionaries someday.
Things are getting rediculous for the Garcia family. Brother Garcia is working 12 hours a day for 50 bucks and can't come to church because he's working so much. As hard as it is for him to get by over here as a "potentially-illegal-immigrant" (Hey, I don't know for sure ;) ), it's better for him than going back to Mexico. It's really hard to watch that family suffer, yikes.
Albert, the man who is living in a trailer park run by some church, for whom we had to make an "Undercover Book of Mormon", has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. We're really scared for him.
We had an awesome half-mission conference where we got to hear from Elder Christensen, one of the GA 70's. I don't know if you know him, Dad, but he's really cool. He did some amazing training on recieving revelation and teaching our investigators to recieve and recognize revelation.
Well I've got to head off and write my email to President Higham but I am doing very very well and love it here in El Paso. May I never leave.
The gospel is true!
Love,
Elder Wilson
On transfer week P-day is changed to Thursday so that's the reason for no email on Monday. But I'm still alive and well and most importantly, still in El Paso with Elder Thompson. Also, next week P-day will be on Thursday again because of Thanksgiving.
Despite the negative predictions of almost everyone, neither Elder Thompson nor I was transfered. Also, the mission office has made about zero progress on getting us a new apartment so please, keep sending your letters.
Thank you to everyone who wrote me this week, I really do appreciate it.
This week was a great one! First, a story.
One of our recent converts, Eddie, is an absolute stud. We took him out for burgeres one day and while we were eating taught him an after-baptism lesson about the Priesthood. We finish and we're walking out, feeling happy and content, when a man comes running up behind us and says "HEY, HEY GUYS WAIT UP!... If you died today, would you go to heaven?"
For all of you who don't know, this is pretty much the question that all ANTI's start out with. So we were in a little bit of a dilemna. On the one hand we wanted to just rip into this guy and let him know that he was living in the apostasy, etc., etc. But on the other hand, we had Eddie with us and we wanted to keep it civil.
Well sure enough this guy starts opening up some of your stalk ANTI stuff (Jesus isn't brother of Lucifer, Gods, etc. etc.). (These people crack me up. They think that they're actually telling me something new. "You probably don't know this yet because you're not high-up in the church but..." "They probably don't tell you but your church really believes...")
We were really scared for Eddie because he hadn't ever been exposed to any ANTIs and some of these things were new concepts to him. This ANTI could tell Eddie was new and was loving it.
I kept a cool head until he started talking about the trinity, truly one of the stupidest notions ever concieved of within any religion. I kinda got angry and in a semi-calm way taught him about the true nature of the Godhead.
He finishes but saying "Well, you just better check to make sure you're teaching the right Jesus". I'm getting ready to rip into him again when, to the surprise of everyone, Eddy buts in and says "We don't have to check, because we already know." and then bears some FAT testimony.
OH MAN! The anti walked away feeling stunned. It was amazing! Eddy is so solid!
I hope I was able to bring that to life for you because it was awesome!
The Carrillo family is awesome, the four of them are going to be baptized in a couple weeks, and the kids say they all want to be missionaries someday.
Things are getting rediculous for the Garcia family. Brother Garcia is working 12 hours a day for 50 bucks and can't come to church because he's working so much. As hard as it is for him to get by over here as a "potentially-illegal-immigrant" (Hey, I don't know for sure ;) ), it's better for him than going back to Mexico. It's really hard to watch that family suffer, yikes.
Albert, the man who is living in a trailer park run by some church, for whom we had to make an "Undercover Book of Mormon", has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. We're really scared for him.
We had an awesome half-mission conference where we got to hear from Elder Christensen, one of the GA 70's. I don't know if you know him, Dad, but he's really cool. He did some amazing training on recieving revelation and teaching our investigators to recieve and recognize revelation.
Well I've got to head off and write my email to President Higham but I am doing very very well and love it here in El Paso. May I never leave.
The gospel is true!
Love,
Elder Wilson
November 5, 2007 - Kwan-su-Dude
Hello!
Well it appears that my request for more mail mail and less email was heard. Thank you very much, this gives me more time to write on preperation day (Even though i really don't have that much to say)
This week was a good week. I got to do my first baptism. That is, this is my first baptism where I actually performed the ordinance. It was in Spanish so that was a little scary but it went fine. I baptized a young man named Eddie who heard about the church about a month ago and is already making plans to go on a mission. He's SOOOO cool. We're going to try to go to the Juarez Temple with him sometime this week so that he can do Baptisms for the Dead. I'm excited, it's been a while since I've been in a temple. But anyways his Baptism was reallllly powerful.
Speaking of Baptisms, I went to an area called Sunland Park with Elder Thompson where he had the opportunity to Baptize one of his former investigators. This man was huge, and Elder Thompson is tiny. To make matters worse, the font wasn't quite working all the way for some reason and so the water was really shallow. I can honestly say, it was one of the most violent baptisms I have ever seen. The convert got scared half way through because he was dropping so far and he started flailing his arms, but Elder Thompson was not about to do that baptism over; So he just PUSHED him under the water.
I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty uncomfortable, because it was a Baptism and supposed to be sacred or whatever but I wanted to laugh really hard because Elder Thompson had just body slammed somebody into three feet of water. Good Times.
Moving on.
Had an embarssing moment with the Mayorgas where I accidentally said that I like little American boys. These kinds of things tend to happen when you try to have conversations in a language that you don't really speak.
There's been some rumors trickling down from the top that I *might* get transfered. Honestly no one really knows at this point but it's looking like a distinct possibility so starting this Saturday you might want to start sending mail to the Mission Office. Mom if you could somehow manage to get that address out to everyone I would really appreciate that.
Oh here's a good story. It wasn't out turn to have the car and our bike tires got popped so we were running on Saturday Night. We were running by a park with some basketball courts and some black guy yells at us "Hey whities, what you runnin' for? Scared?" Or something stupid like that. So I walked up to him and his friends and challenged them to a game. My companion and I beat them 7-0 including two dunks by yours truly. (In full proselyting atire) After I had humbled them unto repentance, we taught them a quick lesson and started on our way. The guy stops us as we're walking away and comes up to me, gives me a handshake/hug and goes "Hey, you're alright, white boy."
Truth be told he's AWFUL at basketball (probably because he's used to playing against Mexicans who just really don't know how to play) but it still felt really good.
The work is going awesome here. So many people are just so ready for the Gospel I can barely believe how lucky I am. And I'm so lucky to be able to see the fruits of the gospel, how much people are blessed by it.
Oh yeah, by the way we found an ENGLISH family that looks pretty money. Oh man it would be so cool if they went down.
Oh and Mom, you asked some questions about normal missionary life but I can't remember them anymore. I live in the smallest appartment in the world with just my companion and I, I teach almost entirely Spanish, we have a car half the week and a bike the other half, and I almost never get to play basketball. I really can't remember what you asked but that's my best shot. If you've got questions maybe it's best to send them in email so that I have them right here when I'm writing.
Alright well I gotta go. Love you all!
Elder Wilson
PS's
Dad - Thank you so much for your letters. I love the stuff you send me to read, especially that thing by Richard Bushman. That was spot on, I LOVED IT! and I love hearing from you and how you're doing. I'm going to try to get a letter off today to you but no promises because preperation days are so busy.
Mom - Thank you so much for the letter, those essays and the PICTURES! Oh man that was amazing to see pictures of Nikolai and Eva. I love love loved it!
All else that sent me letters thank you a ton and I'll try to write you back at some point but I'm running out of time, sorry, love you all!
PPS
Yes, I'm recieving all of your mail. Mom i got all the pictures etc. Dad I got your check and all your stuff. Everything everything. Thank you thank you thank you.
PPPS
I've got into a habit of yelling "WOOT WOOOT Here comes the PAIN TRAIN BABY!" Every morning when I wake up. It helps me wake up for some reason, don't know why. Probably because Elder Thompson hates it.
Well it appears that my request for more mail mail and less email was heard. Thank you very much, this gives me more time to write on preperation day (Even though i really don't have that much to say)
This week was a good week. I got to do my first baptism. That is, this is my first baptism where I actually performed the ordinance. It was in Spanish so that was a little scary but it went fine. I baptized a young man named Eddie who heard about the church about a month ago and is already making plans to go on a mission. He's SOOOO cool. We're going to try to go to the Juarez Temple with him sometime this week so that he can do Baptisms for the Dead. I'm excited, it's been a while since I've been in a temple. But anyways his Baptism was reallllly powerful.
Speaking of Baptisms, I went to an area called Sunland Park with Elder Thompson where he had the opportunity to Baptize one of his former investigators. This man was huge, and Elder Thompson is tiny. To make matters worse, the font wasn't quite working all the way for some reason and so the water was really shallow. I can honestly say, it was one of the most violent baptisms I have ever seen. The convert got scared half way through because he was dropping so far and he started flailing his arms, but Elder Thompson was not about to do that baptism over; So he just PUSHED him under the water.
I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty uncomfortable, because it was a Baptism and supposed to be sacred or whatever but I wanted to laugh really hard because Elder Thompson had just body slammed somebody into three feet of water. Good Times.
Moving on.
Had an embarssing moment with the Mayorgas where I accidentally said that I like little American boys. These kinds of things tend to happen when you try to have conversations in a language that you don't really speak.
There's been some rumors trickling down from the top that I *might* get transfered. Honestly no one really knows at this point but it's looking like a distinct possibility so starting this Saturday you might want to start sending mail to the Mission Office. Mom if you could somehow manage to get that address out to everyone I would really appreciate that.
Oh here's a good story. It wasn't out turn to have the car and our bike tires got popped so we were running on Saturday Night. We were running by a park with some basketball courts and some black guy yells at us "Hey whities, what you runnin' for? Scared?" Or something stupid like that. So I walked up to him and his friends and challenged them to a game. My companion and I beat them 7-0 including two dunks by yours truly. (In full proselyting atire) After I had humbled them unto repentance, we taught them a quick lesson and started on our way. The guy stops us as we're walking away and comes up to me, gives me a handshake/hug and goes "Hey, you're alright, white boy."
Truth be told he's AWFUL at basketball (probably because he's used to playing against Mexicans who just really don't know how to play) but it still felt really good.
The work is going awesome here. So many people are just so ready for the Gospel I can barely believe how lucky I am. And I'm so lucky to be able to see the fruits of the gospel, how much people are blessed by it.
Oh yeah, by the way we found an ENGLISH family that looks pretty money. Oh man it would be so cool if they went down.
Oh and Mom, you asked some questions about normal missionary life but I can't remember them anymore. I live in the smallest appartment in the world with just my companion and I, I teach almost entirely Spanish, we have a car half the week and a bike the other half, and I almost never get to play basketball. I really can't remember what you asked but that's my best shot. If you've got questions maybe it's best to send them in email so that I have them right here when I'm writing.
Alright well I gotta go. Love you all!
Elder Wilson
PS's
Dad - Thank you so much for your letters. I love the stuff you send me to read, especially that thing by Richard Bushman. That was spot on, I LOVED IT! and I love hearing from you and how you're doing. I'm going to try to get a letter off today to you but no promises because preperation days are so busy.
Mom - Thank you so much for the letter, those essays and the PICTURES! Oh man that was amazing to see pictures of Nikolai and Eva. I love love loved it!
All else that sent me letters thank you a ton and I'll try to write you back at some point but I'm running out of time, sorry, love you all!
PPS
Yes, I'm recieving all of your mail. Mom i got all the pictures etc. Dad I got your check and all your stuff. Everything everything. Thank you thank you thank you.
PPPS
I've got into a habit of yelling "WOOT WOOOT Here comes the PAIN TRAIN BABY!" Every morning when I wake up. It helps me wake up for some reason, don't know why. Probably because Elder Thompson hates it.
October 29, 2007
Hello everybody!
Let's get the busy work done first (kind of a new motto of mine).
1) As far as moving goes, these kinds of things tend to move slowly so if I had to put money on it, I would say that we'll be out of our appartment by January, so you can keep sending me mail here for a while. I don't know the address but if you want to send things there, I think that only takes an extra day or two.
2) Mom, Ryan Curtis said he hasn't been getting my emails lately so make sure that happens.
3) I spend most of my 1 hour allotted email time reading emails. So if any of you want to print out and send your emails I would really appreciate that.
Ok, so everythings is going great out here. Work is going really well and I'm having a ton of fun. Good story for everyone:
We found a new family knocking, the Cario family. Father is gone, mother is doing everything she can to support her five children and they're living in an apartment that's about the same size as ours. We went over to teach her for the second time on Saturday with a member and afterwards we realized that one of the ward parties was going on at the Chapel.
There wasn't enough room in the member's car for everyone so he drove the family to the chapel while Elder Thompson and I BOOKED IT over there on foot. We calculated it out and I'm pretty sure that we ran about a 7-minute mile in suit coats and full backpacks. I LOVE that family!
So now we just have to complete the third leg of the triathalon. We biked to their house the first time we met them. We ran over to the chapel. All that's left is the waters of Baptism. WOOH!!!
By the way Elder Christensen is coming out to our Zone conference next week. Do you know him, Dad?
Glad to hear the Red Sox won the series, wooh!
It was cool to hear that both Mom and Dad knew my companion's grandparents, and by the way his Dad's name is Bradley, so I don't know if either of you know him.
Well it looks like I'm out of time! Love you all very much! The gospel is true! This is Christ's church!
Love,
Elder Wilson
Let's get the busy work done first (kind of a new motto of mine).
1) As far as moving goes, these kinds of things tend to move slowly so if I had to put money on it, I would say that we'll be out of our appartment by January, so you can keep sending me mail here for a while. I don't know the address but if you want to send things there, I think that only takes an extra day or two.
2) Mom, Ryan Curtis said he hasn't been getting my emails lately so make sure that happens.
3) I spend most of my 1 hour allotted email time reading emails. So if any of you want to print out and send your emails I would really appreciate that.
Ok, so everythings is going great out here. Work is going really well and I'm having a ton of fun. Good story for everyone:
We found a new family knocking, the Cario family. Father is gone, mother is doing everything she can to support her five children and they're living in an apartment that's about the same size as ours. We went over to teach her for the second time on Saturday with a member and afterwards we realized that one of the ward parties was going on at the Chapel.
There wasn't enough room in the member's car for everyone so he drove the family to the chapel while Elder Thompson and I BOOKED IT over there on foot. We calculated it out and I'm pretty sure that we ran about a 7-minute mile in suit coats and full backpacks. I LOVE that family!
So now we just have to complete the third leg of the triathalon. We biked to their house the first time we met them. We ran over to the chapel. All that's left is the waters of Baptism. WOOH!!!
By the way Elder Christensen is coming out to our Zone conference next week. Do you know him, Dad?
Glad to hear the Red Sox won the series, wooh!
It was cool to hear that both Mom and Dad knew my companion's grandparents, and by the way his Dad's name is Bradley, so I don't know if either of you know him.
Well it looks like I'm out of time! Love you all very much! The gospel is true! This is Christ's church!
Love,
Elder Wilson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)