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