In which Covey becomes a trainer, baptizes a 10-year-old, and gets well-cooked

This week we had a really good baptism. we baptized this one kid named Agustin Gonzales. He is 10 years old, and here is why his baptism is so awesome. His family (all the people in the picture) are members of the church, and were way active, they were all leaders and awesme membersof the ward. But about 4 years ago, something happened, and the entire extended family went inactive. While we were teaching agustin, one by one we got the whole familyinvolved. Through him and his baptism, the whole family has now re-activated in the ward. It is really exciting for the ward.

I am really nerveous! tomarrow are transferers,and I am assigned to be a trainer!! My companion is leaving, and I am going to train my "oro" here in areoparque. It is going to be a really great experience, and I know i will learn a ton! ha I feel like i am still just a "oro" (oro means gold, and thats what they call new missionaries here. I think they are called greenies or something up there), and now i get the chance to train, its a lot of responsibility, and i really am really excited to train him. More updates on that next week!

Its sad that my compañero Elder Banegasleaves though, he is really good and we worked together really well and had lots of baptisms here in areoparque (which is an area a little infamous for not baptising at all). with him, my spanish and ability to teach increased a lot, and we had a lot of fun and spiritual experiences. 

oh, we talked to cristina this week ( the one who i explained in the last letter home), and it looks like she wont get baptised at this time,  but we still have lots of faith in her. What happened is that she met some apostate mormon, and heard all sorts of lies, which gave her some doubts. But we are just working with her to develop her testimony in the Book of Mormon. If soemone believes in the book of mormon, any doubt they might have can be resolved.

I love the bookof mormon. One of the biggest blessings of being a missionary is that we have the chance to be able to relly study and memorize that book. Every page has awesome scripture, and it has every thing that mankind needs to know to be happy in this life and forever. I love it. 

Gotta go! I am getting well-cooked down here :) Its weird to think that you are all freezing in the winter! I love the misson. 

Elder Wilson

one temple trip, one baptism, and one non-baptism

This was a really great week for us! It started out with us being able to go into montevideo and be able to go to a session in the Temple! It felt so good, I love being in that sacred building, and being able to perform the sacred ordanances of the temple. It is such a strong spiritual blessing to be able to go, and I was able to recieve strong personal revelation, and also be able to be able to recieve revalation for my companionship and the people in my area that I am teaching. It was nice to be able to be in the temple and reflect over what I have done on my mission so far, what I have done well, and what i can do better. I really have a really strong testimony of Temples, and miss being able to go multiple times every week before the mission, but I am here to do ordanances for the living, not the dead!

After the session in the temple we had a really good zone conference with president da silva, it was a really really good zone conference. we read over the creation of the world in the book of Moses, and applied the principles to what we are doing as missionaries, and in the misson Montevideo Uruguay. One thing that we talked about was the order and organization of everything... literally everything that God does. And if we in our lives, or misiones, want to enjoy the guidance of the spirit, we have to have things in order, and do things the way that the lord wants us to. 

This week we had the baptism of Laura, the 18 year old daughter of Zily who got baptized a couple weeks ago. Laura is an increadibly awesome woman, but her biggest challange is that she is the most shy person i have literally ever met. I honestly think that The whole 3 weeks that we have been teaching her she only said Sí to agree to keep the commitments. In the baptismal service, i think she almost died of emberasment because there were lots of members (for this reason I dont have a picture of her, she wouldnt let us take one with her). But at the moment of her baptism, the spirit decended so strongly, more stongly that I have ever felt it in one of my converts baptisms, and I felt the strongest impression that she is going to be a really really big help to the church. For a moment both me and my companion got the same picture in our minds of her dressed in white going into the temple to recieve her endowments. it was a really special moment, all the members were crying. 

The other baptism that we had planned this week had a slightly different ending. Her name is Cristina, a señora of about 45 years, who was an absolutely golden investigator. She read the Book of Mormon like a profet, she went to church activities, she had one foot in the water, but on the day of her interview I called her to set the time, and the first thing she said was ¨no me voy a bautizarme¨ and hung up. Oh, at that moment I fealt really bad and devistated. After that phone call we wernt able to find her for 3 days to see what happened, but yesterday we made contact! And set up a charla with her for later this week. Im really anxious to see her, and see what happened. But we have lots of faith in her, she is soooo good. It is so interesting to see all of the tricks that satan plays on the people who are about to get baptized! Please pray for her. 

well, time to go! I love everyone.

chau

Elder Wilson

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