last letter home!

So, I can not believe that I have finally come to my last week writing home. The last two years have passed like a dream. But it has been the best dream Ive ever had :) The other day I sat down and tried to write up all of the blessings I have recieved in my time here in the mission, and as the list got longer and longer I was fill filled with a huge sense of gratitude and amazement of just how much the Lord had taken me and formed me in order to do this huge work. I have learned that going on a mission should never be motivated as a sort of 'personal investment', i mean that you go just thinking about what you can gain, like a stronger testimony, or gain life skills, or whatever, the motivation for going on a mission should be simply  to serve the lord and bring souls unto christ. But, as I have worked hard to do that, the lord has taken me and 'qualified me for the work'. It is this qualification process that makes the Mission the best personal investment that exists. 

Today I am going to go around with my companion and visit some of my converts, and I am so excited to see these people that I love so much. When I am on the airplane taking off from Uruguay, I am going to be able to see a few of the areas that I worked in, and will be able to look down on the country that I love so much and say a little prayer in my heart that the Lord blesses them. i didnt cry when I left home and came on the mission, but I sure will when i leave the mission. 

I love the Lord, and I have learned to be a deciple of christ. I know that Repentance and Covenants brings forgivness of sin, and salvation. I love teaching the Gospel. It is my favorite passtime, and I think that it will be the thinig that I miss most after the mission - sitting down with a 'lost sheep' and teach  the path to happiness, then seeing the light of the gospel enter into their lives. You can see the light first in their eyes, then their whole face, then it spreads to their house and family members.Teaching is a guarenteed chanal to revelation, and I will miss it a lot.

I have had a perfect mission - perfect companions, areas, presidents.. everything. My mission means everything to me, and I hope that it never ends. 

Thanks for all your support, and we will see each other soon! 

I know that about 200 years ago Joseph Smith saw our heavanly father and his 'beloved son', and opened up the doors of heavan again. i know that the atonement of Jesus is a real power. After seeing it work in the lives of others - and especially my own life, how could I not believe it? He loves me so much that he has showed me all of my faults. That might be one of the greatest things that I have learned on my mission. But he has lovingly helped me start to patch them up.

I love Uruguay, and hope to be back ASAP!

Elder Wilson

may 11

So, this week has been very exciting for me. Elder Gonzalez and his wife are here doing a mission tour, and I have been traveling around with them and president Armstrong as they have been visiting all of the mission. 

I cant write too much today, because we have to leave for a city called Maldonado which is a couple hours away. We are going to pick up Elder Gonzales´ son who is coming into the airport, and drive him to Maldonado to be with his parents who are already there. 

Being able to be around a member of the 70 is a big blessing and I have learned a ton from just being around them. 

Well, got to go and keep on working! I love being a missionary so much! There is nothing better than share my testimony of Jesus Christ and his atonement, then teach the gospel to those who accept him in their lives. 

Thanks everybody for your support and prayers - I feel them especially in the moments of tryal and sadness when the people that I love reject the gospel in their lives. 

Elder Wilson. 

may 4

we went with president to a awesome korean restaurant on pday. We went because Elder Ha, one of the office elders, is korean. It was really fun and good food too. 

So, first things first, we had the baptism of patricia and sebastian! it was amazing... But the water heater is apairantly broken, and the water was cold.. but the physical shock of the cold water just makes the experience of the baptism only more impressive. They are great converts, always reading the book of mormon and inviting their friends to also have the gospel. 

I think that the best experience that I had this week is that I was able to go back to Roca, which is the area that I started my mission out in. It, for me, was one of the most sacred experiences of my mission. I was able to see my converts from before the misson, and I loved being with them. Carlos, one of my baptisms there, opened the door and immediately broke into tears and gave me a big old hug saying 'my angel'. it was really neet to see the affects of my mission and the changes in the people that I have taught. I love rocha with all my heart. It is so beautiful, the city itself, but especially the people are beautiful.

We found a new family that we are teaching, that have a baptisma date for the weekend after i leave the mission, so I will keep you updated on the details of their progress. 

I am excited for this week because we are going to be accompanying President Armstrong and President Walter Gonzalez all around the mission to different conferences. I am excited to see what i will learn. 

Thanks for everyting, and pleae prey for our investigadors Sandra and her family. I love the mission, it means everything to me.

Elder Wilson

April 27

602 - A little 'welcome back' reception we had for Sister Armstrong when she came back after a few monthes of medical absence.

778 - me and my Elder Looney at the sister conference that we had about a month ago. that was kind of an awkward experience to be honest... but I guess thats how sister missionaries always feel being the minority

Hola!

This week has been super busy getting everything prepared for when Elder Gonzales (Who was part of the presidencey of the 70, but now is the area president here) comes in 2 weeks to do a tour of the mission. Our investigador Patricia and her son Sebastian are going to get baptized today at 5:00. Her conversion story has really strengthened my testimony of the Book of Mormon in conversion. She has had to change her life and overcome a lot of strong opposition in order to make it to her baptism. She is a very smart lady, she is a lawyer, and when we started teaching her abot 4 weeks ago she started reading the book of Mormon from the start. She has already made it through about half of the book, and this testimony has really been a great strength to her as she has prepared for her baptism. If only everyone in this world read in the Book Of Mormon as much as she does!

Also her son sebastian is an amazing story of conversion. He is 9 years old, and super smart too and seems more like a 12 year old.... For example he has like 20 trophies for winning chess competitions... but up until 3 weeks ago he was an "athiest" (or at least thats what he has said to his little nun teachers that he has in his catholic school - he is actually the only student in his class that is not baptized catholic because he always refused it. He tells stories about how the nuns think he is the devil-child and so on... its actually pretty funny from my perspective). When we started teaching his mom, he did not want anything to do with us, he always sat on his computer and played video games, but I guess that he was always listning because one day he came over and just said, "I want to get baptized with my mom" (she about had a heartattack our of shock) and we asked him why and he said " Because i want to be like Joseph Smith, and go on a mission like you guys". It is a cool example of how the spirit works in the hearts of children too. Now every day he brings his liittle Book of Mormon to his catholic school and reads out of it out loud to his classmates and shares his testimony about the apostacy, restoration and joseph smith to the teachers... were not sure if the nuns will let him in next year.

Anyways, I love the mission, my companion is amazing (i still get along with him after 8 monthes of being his companion), my Mission President is amazing, and the people of Uruguay are amazing.

Thanks for all your support and prayres.

Elder Wilson

pictures and Patricia

616 - me and elder looney searching out the lost sheep

568 - us on top of themission car

602 - Montevideo is beautiful!

Letter home

I cannot believe that it is already the endish of April! Time goes so fast!

I am doing great! Last week we had a really cool meeting with all of the District and Zone leaders in the whole mission, and it went really great. It was a very spiritual meeting. One cool  change that has happened in the mission department in the whole world, it that now a new leadship position exists, called ‘sister trainer-leaders’. Basically, for every 20 sister missionaries there is a companionship of sisters assigned to help them receive capacitating and help for personal problems. They administer under the direction of the mission president and the assistants, so it has been a real blessing to be able to work with them. Sisters are amazing, and a very important asset to the mission. They are very much more sensitive in general, and especially about the spiritual things.

In our area, it has been a hard week, mostly just because we have not had as much time as we would like to work in it, we have been overloaded with things to do in the offices and other problems to solve in the mission. But Patricia is doing great. Her testimony and conversion s amazing! She is already almost done reading 2^ndNephi, and the biggest miracle of this week is that her son Sebastian, who is 9 years old, finally accepted the invitation to get baptized, and will be baptized together with his mom. This makes us super happy because the family is sooo important to the church.

It feels so strange to know that this is my 4^th to last p-day that I will have in my mission! Ive still got 4 weekends left to baptize! I still do not realize that my last transfer has come… it hasn’t hit me fully, and I don’t think that it will till I’m on the airplane. But I am not at all ‘trunky’ I don’t think, this is the best time of my mission, and I feel the spirit stronger than ever. There are a lot of lessons that I still need to learn though, so these next weeks need to be the best ones in my whole mission J I love my mission, it means everything to me.

I am so greatful for all of the blessings that I have received. Last week I made a list of things that the lord has blessed me with in my mission, and I had to stop in the 4^th page because I realized that I could go on forever! Nobody will ever regret serving a full time mission; it has changed my life, and still will.

Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Till next week,

Elder Wilson

April 13

This has been a crazy weelk! First of all, we all loved the Conference! Especially because of all of the wonderful talks about Missionary Work! The spirit of the misionary work that we are feeling is really incredable. All of the members are starting to catch the wave. Me and my companion are going to make a document that has all of the amazing quotes from General Conference about the missionary work, and give it to all the mission to use with members. 

Here is a crazy experience that happened during the General Conference. So, Patricia, our amazing investigador that is getting baptized this next weekend, came to the sunday evening session of conference, and half way through the session, a strange person that was sitting next to her grabbed her sweater which happened to have had all of the money that she needed to get through the week, and snuck out. A few minuits later, María Pía, her little daughter, told her that she had seen him off with her stuff, so she left to find him, and went home obviously devistated and desperate because now she had no way to feed her kids that week. Thats not a good experience to happen in the church! We had no clue that this all had happened, but when we found out we were really scared that she was going to get offended and not want anything more to do with us, but then one of the biggest miricles that I have ever seen in my mission happened. The Relief Society pres. felt like she should call her just to see how she was doing, and when she found out what had happened, she went with the bishop to her house, talked out the problem, gave her the needed money to get through the week, and really just ministered to her needs. Now she is even stronger that ever in her testimony about the trueth of our chruch. it was a huge testimony to me about the power of members to help those who are needy, and that if the Lord wants someone to get baptized, he is perfectly ready to send a miricle on down in order to overcome the opposition. 

We were super overwhelmed this week because we had 26 new missionaried come to our mission! This is a record number, so it was a huge deal to prepare and have everything happen right. But in the end it went very smoothly, and I felt the spirit really strong when we were capacitating them and introducing them to the mission. We are amazed by the number of sister missionaries that are coming to the mission, and very grateful for their service. 

Ive got a lot of mixed feelings right now, because it is officially my last transfer in the mission! I am what you call a 'valiente', or last-transfer missionary. I am going to be sure to make this be the best time of my mission. We have so much to do. Thanks for all your support! Prey that Patricia can stay strong in this week before her baptism!

Elder Wilson

Last week has been amazing! First off, we had the baptism of Cesar and Alejandra! They are some of the most amazing converts that I have had on my mission. Cesar, just to rimind you of his story, just got out of jail after four years there, where he dedicated himself to the study of the Bible, and came looking for us to teach him the gospel. His testimony is amazing. Yesterday he came with us to a lesson with a new investigador that we found, and he bore his testimony about the power of conversion and repentance. The heavans really just opened up, and the spirit was so strong, and the investigador (Ivanna, who is a 23 year old) accepted to be baptized the 27th of this month. Alejandra's conversion story is no less amazing, she was a reference from Pedro (a member from our ward, who was baptized a little more than a year ago). She grew up as an Evangelical, but had a really hard childhood and youth, and recently had separated from her huzband. She lives alone with tatiana her 7 year old daughter, and was really preying hard that God would gide her to the right path. Long story short, she was invited by her ex- brother in law to church, and got baptized a couple weeks later. She is also acompanying us in a lot of lessons, and the level of conversion to the LDS doctorine is truely amazing. 

The bapismal service was amazing too. We had 60 people show up, which is amazing, especially in this ward where the sacrament attendence is about 50. It was a huge blessing because the investigadors felt the support of the members, and the members have gotten really excited to participate also in the missionary work... for example, this week we have found 3 awesome new investigadors from member referencias. The lord is really blessing this ward right now. 

Im am so excited for General Conference today! I cant wait to see what personal revelation the lord is going to throw at me... I use the work throw because I feel like it the best word to describe the huge amount that comes... maybe pour on me is a softer way of saying it. I was in this same church a whole year ago for General Conference. i'm expecially excited to hear the church stats report, and see the new temples that are announced and the number of misionaries that are serving. I have thought up a few questions that have been on my mind for awhile, and im sure that I will be able to recieve some answers today, this sort of instant communication with god is invaluable and sacred, and only happens once every 6 monthes, so I plan on taking full advantage of it. I also invite everyone who reads this to really take full advantage of general conference too. 

It has been an interesting last couple weeks because we have been working a lot with President to do the transfers, which happen on tuesday. President Armstrong is a truely inspired man, and I am trying to learn as much as possible in the moments that I am with him. Later I will tell the amazing story of the miricles that happened to his wife, who was home in the USA sick, so that she came back to the mission. 

Anyways, enjoy conferece! 

Elder Wilson