Areoparque

This week was really good, I am really growing to love the area Areoparque more and more. We have been working really hard here and are seeing lots of sucess. Remember how I said that when I arrived here a few weeks ago the Ward here was not really working well with the Misionaries? Well, we have been working really hard to work well with the members and leaders and gañar the confianza uhh confidance of the ward. We have seen a lot of progress. Now we are having almost every single lesson with a member and are progreassing a lot with that, which is leading us to get more and more good investigators through the members. I really have no problem clapping houses, its fun to do, but it is so painfully ineffecive to find new investigators! 

I love being able to spend all my heart might mind and strength in the lord here in my mission. I know that after the mission life is going to get really really busy and quick, and I wont be able to spend so much time specifically on the Lord. And the scary part is that my mission is flying by so quick! I feel like I just got here in Uruguay a couple weeks ago, but its already been almost 6 monthes since I gave my farewell talk and hopped on the plane! But i love my mission. If anyone is reading this who is deciding wether or not to serve a mission, Do It! it is the best thing you will ever do.

The mission is the best marriage prep, father prep, work prep, school prep, leadership prep, deciple prep, cooking prep, budgeting prep... well just life prep class anyone could ever take.But those are selfish reasons to go.  the best part about being able to serve a mission is that you get to help out the Lord in his ¨work and glory.. to bring to pass the imortality and eternal life of man¨, and when you do that you get to see a little bit of what he means about the pure love of christ. I dunno, the best part of the mission is the love. 

Anyways... Im reading the Old Testiment right now, and am learning a lot of  good things, but it really is a BIG test of faith to belive some of the things that it says. I would recommend a study of the Book of Mormon before the OT :)

I love everyone. Thanks for your prayres. 

Elder Wilson

ants and white pants

zuly and bryan, with the bishop doing the baptism. The rest of the kids are children/grandchildren of Zuli and friends of Bryan.

another Uruguayan sky. sorry, but when I dont have any good pictures I just put the ones I have takin of the sky. Its hard to take pictures here, because I dont take my camera out.

This week went really good. We had the baptisms of Zuly and Bryan. Zuly is a 47 year old woman who we fould just knocking doors. Her Husband died just 2 years ago, and it was/is really hard for the family. She progressed really fast to her baptism, now we are teaching her 18 year old daughter Laura. Laura is a really good investigator, but she is reaaaallly shy. I think that the only words we have ever heard her say are yes when she commits to live the commandments. 

Bryan, the other baptism, is a 14 year old boy, who his friends brought to the church, we taught him, and he got baptized. It is really good for the ward, because they are in desperate and constand serch for priesthood holders. He is a really good kid, and it is good for him to have the help of the Holy Ghost because his house has a really hard environment. It was kind of funny, but we had to almost literally drag him out of the bathroom and into the baptism because he was WAY emberassed to be seen wearing funny looking white clothes in front of his friends. But he is a really good kid. 

I have a personal goal to never get my white pants wet on my mission. I dont want to have to perform a single baptismal ordanance, but rather have members of the ward perform the ordanance. This will help the inviestigators feel more loved in the ward, and also will help animate the members of the Ward to use their priesthood, and develop their testimonies, and also it helps the members have more trust in the missionaries. This week the bishop did the baptisms. 

Also, I am really really really happy because I saw in the weekly newsletter that the people I had been teaching forever in Rocha got baptized 3 day after I left! It feels really good to be able to look back and see how peoples lives have changed. 

Our goal is to have every single lession with a member, and so far we have seen lots of good results from our work. it takes a lot of faith, coordination, diligence and hard work to work well with the members, but the results are really good. I fermly believe that Bryan and Zuly got baptized because they had had a member in every lesson with them. 

I am getting really good at cooking too. 

One fun fact about Uruguay is that they do their ants Jungle style, or in other words, they have huge lines of millions of ants eating everything in their way. I will try to get a picture, they pass through (literally) our house usually every wednesday. 

I love the mission. I miss you all... I cant remember exactly when Thanksgiving is, but if its this week, Happy Thankgiving!!!

Elder Wilson

a funny story and a brand new clothes washer

Happy haloween! I think its a great pagan holiday, and I feel especially glad to not be a Jehovahs whitness today, they are generally unhappy on "holidays". I decided to dress up like a missonary today. And i will trick or treat a few houses after pday ends.. we "trick or treat" every day as missionaries.

This week has been great. me and elder banegas work together really well and we are having a lot of sucess. we expect lots of baptisms this change... um i think they are called transfers up in the US. With elder banegas my spanish is getting a lot better, because we are not tempted to talk in english. 

My area is really good, but it is really hard. we lose lots of time on the busses traveling  back and forth, and we are can only be in certian areas when it gets dark. it really just consists of a bunch of small little towns. I doubt that it even appears on the maps. But we do have the airport in our area, and it is really weird to always have plains flying by overhead. I went 3 monthes with out seeing a single plane, and now i see them every couple minuits. oh, but one really cool thing about my area is that the compound where the national selection Uruguay team practices in in my area, which is really awesome. Ill try and get a pickure one day. 

But the people here are really awesome, and I love being here. On my mission I learn so much every day, and I can really feel my life changing along side of my invistigators. My mission means everytihing to me, and sorry all you guys up north, but you are all seeming to be more and more of a dream to me. 

Oh! and a miricle happened on saturday, we were studying together, and guess who came-a-clapping on our door. Presidente y Hermana DaSilva! The miricle is that they brought with them a brand new clothes washer! I have been doing my laundry by hand every day for the past 5 monthes, and it feels sooo nice to relax and listen to the machine do it for you. I really do love my president. They are really good, strict but very nice. President daSinlva is a ameritest (cant remember how to spell that one) member of the quarum of the 70, and is a really good president. And this is the best mission on the face of the planet. 

funny story. We had a person who was having a hard time keeping the commandments, so we decided to read the good ole classic 1 NE 3:7 to try and modivate her and get her to accept a baptismal fecha. But she opened up to 3NE 3:7 and read that one instead... a little hard to explain that verse, but it worked and she accepted the challange and has a baptismal fecha hahahah the lord works in way myserious ways sometimes. 

Anyways, I hope everything is good, thanks for all your prayers, and pray for my investigators more than me... well both if you can. 

Elder Wilson

Covey's new area!

a family that got baptized yesterday that I taught, but didnt get to see the baptism.

in the house of a recent convert

a pic of my new house with my companion in front (elder banegas)

New area! Aerio parque is awesome! Remember how i said that Rocha was like a little european city? Well my new area is nothing like rocha. areoparque is 100% latino! the houses, the music, the food, the cucurachas, the people, is all really latin american. It is about 35 kilometres outside of Montevideo, and is pretty campo (I cant remember what that word is in english). I am serving in a ward here, which is nice because there is lots of leadership and priesthood members. Unfortunately the elders before us were a little bit un-productive, and did not have much sucess baptizing, and kind of lost the confidence of the members. But we are working reallly hard to turn this area into a really productive area. Already we have made lots of progress with this and the leaders and members are starting to participate in the work and trust in us.

My new companion is Elder Banegas de Honduras. He had a year on the mission, and I am really excited to work with him. He is way humble and has a really strong testimony, and is willing to work hard. We are going to have lots of sucess here. estoy seguro. Its really fun to have a latino companion.

The people here talk really really different than the rest of the spanish speaking world. The people are way nice and humble, and the weird thing is that missionaries have been here forever, so everyone knows who we are and has at one point talked to us.

The area is way big in space, but just mostly consists of small little neighborhoods, so we spend a lot of time on busses going back and forth everywhere.

I know that I am going to learn a whole lot here about how to be a missionary. I love the misson and am ready to accept the challenge of a new area.

plus the dogs are nice here. nicer... well i think so anyways.

Thanks for your prayres, pray for my investigators.
Elder Wilson

Covey baptizes Grisel, gets bitten by a dog (twice) and gets transferred to the most dangerous area of the mission

Grisel´s baptism. this is her and her husband Emilio. We hoped that they would get baptized together, but he still isnt ready to accept the commitment, but we keep on working really hard with him to get him to humble up a little and get baptized.

The sun really knows how to rise here. Sorry all I seem to send home is pictures of the sun rising and setting, but the problem is that dont take my camera out of the apartment ever, so I never am able to take any good pictures of the mission life.   But thats ok because the sun is really beautiful.

So, last night change calls came, and I am leaving Rocha tomorrow. It is really sad for me to leave this city that has been my home, my work, my everthing for the last three months. I love this little city so much, it is so beautiful, the country is so beautiful, and I know almost every single person. I and I really was hoping that I could stay for at least another 6 weeks. Especially it is sad because 3 of my investigators that we have been working with for such a long long time and have progressed so much are going to get baptized this saturday, and I will not be able to be there to see them. But its ok, all that matters is that they are getting baptized. And I am really excited to go somewhere fresh. My new area is called Aerio Parque, in Montevideo, and all that I have heard is that it is the most dangerous area in the mission. I am really excited to go work there.

 

But this week was really good, lots of our invesigators progressed a ton, and we found 2 awesome families. The weeks go by so quick! One thing that I really focused on this week was the power of testimony. In 2 aspects: realizing how strong my testimony is and how much power it has, and second, sharing it. It is like president holland pointed out in his talk in priesthood session: satan tried soo hard to bind our tounges so that we do not bear our testimonies to others. I love being able to bear testimony to the people in contacts about the divinity of Jesucristo to all the people that I can. That is one of the greatest blessings that misionaries have, to be able to bear testimony. I hope that all of the members of the church have courage to bear their testimonies. Also, i have  been taking Elder Scotts advice and memorizing one scripture per day. Now, I have 24 new friends, or memorized scriptures. Like elder scott said: scripture is pure truith, and I love reciting scripture in lessions and contacts. the scriptures have so much power.

 

Ther have been some people asking me why I dont like dogs anymore. I love the sinner but I hate the sin. the concept of the DOG is really good, but the dogs down in this side of the world are pretty wicked. I got bit pretty bad  this week twice. thats why i dont like dogs.

 

Also, thank you all for your letters, Missionaries love getting letters, and i am no exception. And i promise that i will write back to every single letter. But It would be nice if you sent a stamp inside the lettter so that I can send you a letter back, or else I have no way of sending it.

 

Thanks

Elder Wilson

a baptism! and LOTS of walking

We had a baptism this week! (picktures to come). Her name is Grisel, and we have been working with her for a few monthes now. It was such an awesome baptism, even though the water was freezing cold (the heater at the church was a little broken). She has done so much and changed so much in order to prepare herself for her baptism. It felt so good to see a baptism, and see the happiness it brings to families. Also, it makes me so happy to see my converts becoming really active in the church. Beatrice (my first convert) comes to every single church meeting, and recieved a calling in the Relief Society! She is nothing but smiles whenever we see her, and it feels so amazing to contrast her attitude and level of happiness that she feels now to when she opened the door for us. (Alma 26 - I sometimes feel like this). And Valeria is coming to everything and always inviting all of her friends and everything. Right now we are (trying) to teach her Mom, and we are teaching her cousin. Her cousin is awesome! She is deaf and Mute and cant read, so it really helps us teach by the spirit (because thats the only way we can communicate with her), but she is awesome, and i never thought that I would be learning a little sign language on my mission too!

This week we had Interviews with President DaSilva, and it went really good. He is such an awesome mission president. he used to be a member of the first quarum of the 70, and he knows how to really lead a mission. I am in the best mission in the world. Also, we are a little scared that this might be our last week together with my first comanion! Next week is changes, and we think that one of us will get changed. He is an awesome missionary and a great trainer. 

I did the math, and i have already walked more than the distance of my house in alpine to my house in Oregon and half way back. But its fun, I feel like a real missionary in old times (especially because this country is re-winded 20 years back). 

I love the mission, and thanks for all your prayres!

general conference week

What an awesome week the entire curch had with General Conference and some awesome new temples announced!

 

Bur first, Ive been thinking that I need to up the quality of my emails home. The problem is that I am working like a maniac all day-every day of the week, having more than 1000 cool experiences every day, without even thinking about what I am going to put into my little emails home on monday. Then before I know it, I am sitting here in front of the computer trying to write out some semi-ledgible summary of my week. Its really hard, so I am sorry if my emails in the past have been really kind of unorganized.

 

Here is one of the really cool experiences I had this week: We were, like always, walking out on some dirt road in the middle of nowhere Uruguay. And up walks one of our old investigators, sipping down some mate, like always, that we had to drop about two monthes ago because of some problems with the commandments. We expected to just say hi, but when he came up to us, he announced: "OK mormons, I made up my mind. I am going to get baptized in your church, and nothing will stop me this time. Its true what you said that wickedness is not happiness." It was so awesome! The coolest part, is that we, the missionaries, did not do a single thing. His decision came through his agencey, and especially because the Spirit had been working on him in ways that we could not see. I learned that day that we as missionaries really cannot see the fruits of our works in any way, and that the Lord has a plan for everybody. This was a really great experience  for me, and really increased my testimony.

 

I loved Conference. We got to see it in English, which was really nice. I love hearing those warm voices of the apostals and prophets that I grew up listening to. My favorite talks that really stood out to me were Elder Packer´s talk to the youth and Elder Christoffrisen´s (i dont know how to spell that one). Especially Elder Crist.´s talk really helped my understanding of my role as a missionary grow. When I first got out here on my mission, it was weird for me to call people to repentance, but as I have grown in my love for the people here, it comes more and more easy to do it.  Helping people repent is truely an expression of love.

 

The cool thing about my mission, is that I can feel it changing my life. I can feel my life after my mission changing and developing even though that life is still almost 2 years away. I love my mission, it means everything to me. I learn so much every day, and I love just helping people change. Right now we are fighting so hard to get a baptism. We have so many good people who we are working wigh, but its disappointing when we have to push their baptisms back because they do not keep commitments. But everybody´s got their agencey.

 

Anyways, Back to work! Thank you for your prayres and support. Missionaries need it!

 

Untill next week,

Elder Wilson