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

The Force is Strong With This One

November 17, 2008

Hello everyone! Things are going great here in Tucson. Just as a reminder: Transfers are going to be a week from Tuesday. No one knows what's going to happen and that's just the point but as things get down to the wire, if you want to send a letter, it might be best to do so through the mission office. (I don't know the address off hand but I think my parents do).

We just got back from the driving range. Elder Espericueta, one of the Elders in our branch, is going home next Tuesday so we decided to show him a good time on his last P-Day. He had never been golfing before but I think he enjoyed it. My swing was a little rusty (Not that I was ever any good) but it felt good to hit around a little.

Well it's been quite a week here in Tucson. The work is picking up. Slowly but surely. When I am tempted to get discouraged I think of my good brethren in Europe who are working their butts of for a fraction of the success that we see.

We have four progressing investigators right now, with a few waiting in the wings. We had a really awesome experience with a family, the Aguirre family the other night.

We met the Aguirres a few weeks ago when we were looking through the branch list and realized that they live in our area and we have no idea who they are. It turns out that the father and two of the daughters had been baptized a few years ago, but the father has since left the family (for reasons unknown to us). Anyways that left three children and the (extremely bitter) wife unbaptized. We've been working with the girls (Two of them baptized, one of them not) for a few weeks now and we were on the very verge of dropping them. Then enter Jesus.

Ok that sounds weird in English but Jesus is their 24 year old brother. Basically, Jesus has been living in Florida for the past year and a half but just came home because he couldn't really make it on his own. So one day he shows up and we think, hey, what's the worse that could happen? So not withstanding the fact that he's pretty gangster and wearing a giant Virgin Maria jacket (Not as rare a combo as you'd think) we decide to teach him.

Well for a couple of lessons we can tell that he's really interested but of course he's got to keep up the Machismo image so he pretends like he's not interested. Then he walks to church but of course "Only because I wanted to make sure my sisters made it safe and sound."

That was a week ago. Yesterday they were going to come and 10 minutes before church starts Jesus calls us and says he's not going to be able to. Why? He hurt his leg.

Well we went over and the "hurt leg" turns out to be a torn knee with a brace on it that looks like it was taken out of Star Wars. So that was the first bit of good news, and then the family, who never invites us inside (We always teach the girls out on the door step), invited us inside and before we know it, the Mom brings us a couple of plates with carne asada, rice, and beans. (it was really really good). Then Jesus gets this kinda uncomfortable look on his face and finally manages "I'm not gonna lie guys, we all met together, and we're on a quest to become Mormons now." I wanted to laugh, cry, jump up and down, and yell all at the same time. (All I really ended up doing was smiling and saying "That's awesome").

Well anyways, that's the Aguirre family.

By the way, something I think I've just never talked about: Hermano Noriega. Hermano Noriega is our branch mission leader and he's AWESOME! He's blind, and luckily he doesn't mind joking around about it (Three days ago I asked him in a lesson if he would share his testimony about how READING the scriptures has blessed his life.) He's also a spiritual giant and has a REALLY REALLY powerful testimony. Sorry, just one of those random things that I think I haven't mentioned before, that I think the parents like hearing about.

Well boys and girls that's about it for this week. I'm loving it hear in the desert and I hope that everything is going well back home. Write letters, I like that. Thank you for all of the love and support. The gospel is TRUE! It's THE ANSWER.

Love,

Elder Ben Wilson

Sorry Mr. President, I Don't Dance

November 3, 2008

Hello one and all! It was as pretty good week last week.

I just wanted to start off by thanking the family for that wonderful packag=
e. THAT CHOCOLATE WAS DELICIOUS! And it's always good to get hand writt=
en letters from the two of you (No matter how angry they might be) So th=
ank you very very much, it sure makes things a lot easier when you know y=
ou have some of the most wonderful people in the world standing behind an=
d supporting you.

We had Stake conference on Sunday which was actually a regional conferenc=
e broadcast from Salt Lake City. President Packer spoke, as well as Elde=
r Jay E. Jensen and a couple of other people who's names I have, sadly, f=
orgotten. One of them told a funny story about some early pioneer settle=
rs who came to Arizona under direction from Brigham Young. Upon settling=
down here they wrote back "If you touch it, it stings you. If you pet i=
t, it bites you. And if you eat it, it kills you."

Also general Sherman of Civil war fame once wrote "We went to war with Mexi=
co once in order to take Arizona, and I think we ought to go to war with =
them again to compel them to take it back."=20

Of course it was all in good fun and the conference was awesome. We receiv=
ed some amazing advice. I particularly liked one thing that President Pa=
cker pointed out. Every prophet has their specialty. Missionary work, c=
olonization, temple building, etc... Well clearly, President Monson's sp=
ecialty is welfare. He has always been concerned about taking care of th=
e physical needs of those around him and making sure that they are cared =
for.

Well isn't it interesting that he should become prophet JUST before a major=
economic crisis hits the world and those sorts of needs are about to sta=
rt popping up everywhere. Especially when considering how long President=
Hinckley's life was preserved. President Monson truly is the man to lea=
d and guide the church in these days!

Speaking of Stake conference... a week ago, the zone leaders had a meeting =
with the stake president and they told me that he had some interest in me=
eting me. Well I went up and said hi to him at Stake Conference and it t=
urns out that he went to Business school with Dad! He said "I just want =
you to know that I think the world of your father and mother". I didn't =
realize that my parents had close friends in Tucson!

Oh and speaking of the economic crisis, people are starting to feel it arou=
nd here. We have(had) a few investigators who can't find jobs anymore so=
they're packing up and heading back to Mexico. Nothing too drastic but =
we're starting to see a few effects from it, which is why I ask about it =
from time to time.

So I did another baptismal interview this last week... and I'd just like to=
say something about the difficulties of filling out a Mexican baptism an=
d confirmation record. But isn't it just like filling out a baptism and =
confirmation record for anyone else, you ask? Oh no. Writing "Johnson, =
Mark David" Isn't that hard. But when you start getting involved with "=
Juan Carlos Ramon Pedro Medina Arroyo Sanchez de la Rosa"... things get a=
little trickier. I swear I spend half an hour just trying to figure out=
which names go where.

Oh yeah, a quick little heads up for everybody: Craig C. Christensen of th=
e 70 is going to be coming into town and we're going to be having a zone =
conference on Monday so don't wait up for an email; it won't come until T=
uesday.

On Friday my companion got in a fist fight with the pavement (fell off his =
bike). His arm and finger got chewed up pretty good but he's recovering =
really fast. He was trying to take a corner without using any hands. It=
was really hard not to laugh.

We had to come in early on Halloween. I carved a pumpkin after the fashion=
of my pirate face (picture to come by mail within the next week). It wa=
s of exceedingly fine workmanship, if I don't say so myself.

This week I have been reflecting somewhat on criticism, humility, the gospe=
l, and our ability to change. The natural man hates criticism, because h=
e has a stronger desire to appear good than to be good, and criticism is =
a reflection of his looking bad. The saint loves criticism, because he h=
as a stronger desire to do and be good than to appear good, and criticism=
helps him to see where he can appear.

So if you're wondering why this email is breaking my recent streak of writi=
ng shorter and shorter emails, the answer is because my Mother wrote me a=
letter addressing the length of my emails, and took about the same tone =
that Joseph Smith took near the end of his life when writing to or about =
William Law and his associates. Thankfully I was able to use that critic=
ism in a constructive way, rather than getting angry (Which is a great b=
lessing from God since my initial reaction was to do quite the opposite.)

Well we've found a few more investigators since last week. The work isn't =
exactly going at a neckbreak pace but it's starting to pick up again. Ev=
ery investigator is a blessing and I'm certainly greatful for the opportu=
nity that i have to serve here and meet the people of South Tucson.

Well everybody that's about it for this weeks edition. I love you all so v=
ery much. Thank you for your continued support. I do have the best frie=
nds and family in the world.

Love,

Elder Ben Wilson

My Name is Diego Montoya, Prepare to Die!

October 20, 2008

Hello everybody! Life goes on here in Tucson. Honestly, not much has happened between Thursday and today but I'll try to make up something so that you have something to read today.

Saturday I got sick again. Really sick. (Thanks for the Emergen-C!) I'm good now, but my companion just came down with the same thing today... So that kind of put a damper on the end of the week.

Mom's Question: Yes I think I could find some pictures to take if you sent me that camera. I plan on sending you some pictures today... apparently cameras go out of date fast. All these new missionaries coming in have cameras with ten times more megapixels or something like that!

Thanks for all the pictures! Although just a warning: I don't have very much space in my mailbox and I got sent that 2mb picture of Mom & Dad with the Highams FOUR TIMES by four different people. So we might need to get some cross-family coordination going on or something like that.

Thanks for the pictures from home. The house looks good... different... it was weird to see my room look different but that's cool.

Well ladies and gents... I would write more but I'm not sure what else to say! I'm alive and well and spreading the restored gospel!

Love,

Elder Wilson

What are the odds that that trap door led me out here?

October 15, 2008

Hello everybody! They didn't quite manage to kick me out of Los Reales yet, I'm still here with Elder Thomas. We'll be spending another transfer together which oficially makes him the companion who I've spent the most amount of time with.

Questions regarding the medical bill: The cause was that I got a big 'ol splinter shoved under my fingernail. Haven't been hit by a car on my bike, but my companion has!

I've been feeling sick lately. Things went from HOT to decent to pretty cold really fast. It still gets hot during the day but right now it's starting to get really really cold at night. So basically the first night that that happened I was caught unawares and got chilled and caught a pretty bad cold.

Which brings me to a pretty cool story. My companion and I got sick. I was feeling pretty miserable. So I was really REALLY lookoing forward to my sleep that night. Well around 1:00 AM I wake up and my companion is snoring louder than a death medal band + a jet engine on my head. I wait ten minutes to see if he'll stop, he doesn't, and so I pack up my blanket and pillow and head to the other side of the house. The thing that makes this particularly unpleasant is that we don't have any carpet in the entire house, just linolium. Well five minutes into tossing and turning on a rock hard floor I realize that this isn't going to work. So I got up and said a prayer and asked God to help me sleep through the night. I laid back down and immediately the thought entereed into my head "Elder Thomas stopped snoring". OKAY! I head back into the room and Elder Thomas is sleeping like a baby and didn't snore for the whole rest of the night. It was a testimony builder for me that God is concerned about the little things in our lives.

I got the packages that you sent me. THANK YOU! It was nice to get some food from back home. Big morale booster.

Oh and my camera and my charger and everything is present and in working order. The only problem is that I often forget to bring it with me when photo opportunities pop-up but I'll try to send you a few pictures in the future.

Well that's about it for this week's eidition. The work of God continues progressing. I love you all and am so greatful for such wonderful parents, siblings, friends and associates. I'm so greatful to be a missionary! This is an amazing work! THE GOSPEL IS TRUE!

Love,

Elder Wilson