Monday, September 17, 2012

sleeping in church buildings, or, how to improvise a baptism

the baptism. Juana is the first on the left. 


This week was one of the craziest weeks of my mission! Ill do my best to try and explain some of the things that happened. So, we had stake conference this weekend, and for missonaries that is kind of bad news just because its complicated to get all of the investigators and recent converts to the stake center, because here in Uruguay almost nobody has a way of transport more than a car. After the stake conference we had planned a service bautismal with the stake leaders, so we were really excited for that. But the stress was that saturday night and untill midday on sunday the public watersystem was going to be shut off for repares. that was a really stressful problem because that means that you cant fill the baptismal font! So we had to think and prey a lot to figure out what we could do to be able to get this baptismal service to work. In the end we decided (with permission of the mission and stake presidint) to stay the night in the chruch to be able to fill the font up so that it would be full of hot water before the time that theyshut the water off. So, for the first time in my life I spent the night in the chruch. It was a really weird experience.Then the next morning we spent the time filling big pots with water, boiling it, and throwing it into the font to try to keep it warm. In the end, it all turned out nice, and 6 people got baptized in a great servicio bautismal that was presided by the Stake President and everything. It was a great progress in our relationship with the local leaders here. 


The person that got baptized from our ward was Juana, an older lady who had been investigating before, but stopped because her family decided to go against our church. Most of her family are of the Macumba religion, a weird devil worshiping religion. But it was great to see the change in heart of her family, who now support her in everything, and a few of them are even listening to the misionary lessons. I guess its true that where there is light, there is not darkness. 

The Stake conference was broadcasted from Salt Lake to Uruguay and Paraguay. It was presided by Pte. Monson, with Elder Anderson and Elder Gonzales of the 70 (who is Uruguayo). It really was an awesome stake conference, and I think that we got a bit of a sneak peak into General conference in a couple weeks. 

Anyways, I am doing really good and am happy. The change calls came last night and I will be staying here in this area with my companion, as expected. I love working here with him,its lots of fun. 

Thanks for all of your prayers! Pray for us to be able to find those who are kept from the truth only because they know not where to find it. 

Elder Wilson

Monday, September 3, 2012

spring is here and Covey is getting thin

So this has been an awesome week. I am really content with what we are
seeing in the zone and area. All the hard work that we have been doing
with the Stake leaders and bishops is really peying off. We have been
meeting with all them about once a week to work out some problems, and
everything is working out good.

I am enjoying my time in my area 100%. My companion is awesome and we
have the same vision (proverbs 29:18) and are working like crazy. This
might be one of the moments in my mission that I have worked hardest,
and the level of spirituality and miricles has gone up. "if a
missionary wants to get the spirit, he must work his head off" Elder
scott. Ive learned over these last 15 monthes that that is true.

We are teaching this investigador Eloisa who came looking for us
because one of her old friends who is way inactive said to her "if you
want help, go to the mormons. its the only way", so she came, and will
get baptized on sunday.

we have doubled the number of lessons with members too, and that has
guiven us a lot of trust from the ward, and helps our investigadors
progress.

one scripture that I have used a lot this week is in philipians 3:13
(i think its called philipians in english.... but maybe filosans or
something...) where paul teaches us about how to move along with the
vision set in goals.

I wanted to send pictures, but my computer wont let me... sorry. But
im really thin just so ya know..

Also, FINALLY SPRING IS HERE!!! thats exciting.

I love you all, and pray for you... when I remember to. its sometimes
hard to pray for all of the things that you should. especially when
its 12000 miles away. but sometimes I remember that there are people
outside of the mission who I should pray for.

Elder wilson

Alma 26:12.

Keep the mail coming!