Big Changes

Hey everybody! How was thanksgiving? I hope it went well. Mine was pretty good, we just went out for tacos, ha.

Well I have some big news! I found out why I got changed out of my old area so fast. I'm actually with my best friend in the whole mission now! His name is Elder Melaerts, he's from Las Vegas. When I say he's my best friend in the mission, that's 100% true. We've known each other since February when we were in the same district in Tehuacan. Its crazy because we always used to joke about being comps at the end of his mission, and now we are! It was funny because in every meeting were always with each other talking, so when president announced that we were companions, we already were right next to each other. Us and everyone else were shocked. Its definitely the happiest I have ever been with changes. Elder Melaerts and I are the zone leaders of the Izucar zone. We're in a small city/town about 2 hours outside of Puebla. That's the only bad part about all of this, I'm kind of far from a big urbanized city. Other than that I am loving it! Elder Melaerts goes home in February, so i will probably be with him when he goes home. And Christmas, and New Years, my birthday, its great!

I still don't know much about the area, but it seems good. I'm in a branch instead of a ward for the first time in my mission. Wards are what the congregations in the church are called, and branches are smaller versions of them.

As I get to know it more, i will let you know. Have a great week and happy December! I love you!

 

Elder Wilson

11/25/2013 (A Little Behind!)

Hello Everyone! How were your weeks? Mine was great! We finally had the Baptism of our investigator named Norma. We had it on Friday night, super late, but we did have it:) It was great. But last night I got some pretty unexpected news. I have changes. Its really weird because I only have 6 weeks here, but that's the way it is, they are shipping me out of here! I still don't know where, Ill find out tomorrow though.

I can 100% say that i really enjoyed this area and completely understand and see why I was sent here. Ive never had a time in my life where the Holy Ghost as inspired and influenced me as it has being here in this area with the companion that I've had. Ive learned so much, and I've grown so much. Even though it was only 6 weeks, this transfer will have a great effect on the rest of my mission.

Ill be short in this email today. But I'm gonna send some pics. I love you guys, happy thanksgiving, and happy birthday to all the birthdays there are!

 

 

 

 

November

Hello Everyone! Its November again, can you believe it!? Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here very soon! And if I'm not mistaken, tonis birthday is on thanksgiving this year. Right? Thats sweet! Is it getting cold there? These will be my first holidays here in Mexico. We already had Halloween and dia de los muertos.But it was really weird and creepy here ha.

But we had a great week!

Monday - We didn't do much for pday, we just chilled. Then in the nighttime we had a really great experience. We had family home evening with a family, but when we got there, there wasn't a man of 18 years or older. So we called a member and told him to come. He came as fast as he could, but we still had to wait quite a while. The members were telling us to just come in and that it didn't matter. After like 20 minutes I felt like maybe we were being a little exaggerated, but we decided to be obedient and not go in. Well after like 5 minutes, a man came buy selling some weird type of deep fried tortilla with sugar. We said no to him at first. but then we felt really bad, so we called him back and bought some. Then he asked us if we were missionaries and we said yes, and he said that he was listening to the missionaries and was going to get baptized. But he had to move really abruptly here to Puebla, and lost all contact with missionaries and the church. Now he is listening to us and came to church yesterday! It really was a miracle that we found him. In doctrine and covenants 82:10 the lord tells us that he is obligated to bless us when we do what he says.Thats a pretty crazy thing to think about. We, as human beings, can obligate God. All we have to do is obey. If we had disobeyed that night and entered that house with only women, maybe nothing really bad would've happened. But we never would have met that man. And maybe he never would have had the chance to accept the gospel again in this life. As we obey God, in whatever aspect of this mortal experience, he HAS to bless us. He has promised us that, and since he is God and he is perfect, he keeps his promises. Do what God wants us to do in this life, and you'll be surprised at what he does he for you further down the road.

Okay...

Tuesday- Not a ton happened, but we did get to commit two people for baptism on the 17th of November, which is always great:)

Wednesday - We had district meeting, and as a district we set a lot of goals together, which really helped us. Then we found 7 new investigators! 2 different families! And one of them has 18 year old triplets! That was nuts haha. They are awesome families too, really willing to listen and accept.

Thursday - Thursday was a pretty normal day, we did find another new investigator though.:)

Friday - I did a baptismal interview, and it was a great learning experience. Usually people are prepared for baptism, and they pass. This is the first time ive had to say no and postpone the baptism. She had some personal things she has to take care of first. She had been afraid to tell the other elders about it, but when I interviewed her it all came out. I was really afraid to offend her, but i knew that she needed to wait to be baptized. she took it really well though, and i will be doing another interview with her again hopefully this Friday:) Oh and btw, we do baptismal interviews so that we can be sure people know what they are getting into, and that are ready to change certain things that they'll need to leave behind if they are going to be baptized. Its not like an exam or anything like that. They are really great experiences.

Saturday - I did another baptismal interview! This time with an 18 year old girl named Ashley. She passed with flying colors:)

Sunday - I went to help the sisters in my district give some blessings to their investigators. That was a good experience:) And almost all our investigators came to church!

Today we just played volleyball. We played volleyball instead of soccer because the sisters came, and hey don't like soccer.

And ya.

there's my week, tell me about yours!

And for xmas, if you are thinking about sending me something heres the address:

31 poniente 109 int. 201

col. chula vista

puebla, puebla c.p. 72420

and if you send UPS youll need a phone number, and here its: 2224295474

I love you guys!

Change...

So I have officially been changed out of Quetzalcoatl. I was very sad for a couple of days. It is definitely my favorite area in the mission, and it probably will stay that way.

But that is in the past! Now I'm in the actual city of Puebla, the first time in my whole mission. I'm in the Mayorazgo Zone, in a ward called 16 de septiempre. I'm still a district leader, and my district is almost half sisters! We're 6 elders and 4 sisters. Its crazy how many sisters are arriving to the mission. Another cool thing is that I have the Zone leaders in my district, and my dad Elder Betts is one of the Zone Leaders! He goes home this change, so I'll be here with him when he does! That was a happy announcement in the changes meeting:)

My companions name is Elder Contreras. Hes sweet. He's from Ecuador, hes obedient, and he works really hard! We are opening this area, so we've been walking around a little lost all week ha. But we did already find a new investigator, and he has a baptismal date:) and we hope to find a lot more this week!

On Saturday I went back to Quetzalcoatl for the baptism of the young lady we were teaching named Catalina:) We had a couple almost disasters happen, but in the end it all went well:) I will attach pictures of the baptism and some others from Quetzalcoatl also!

Today we played soccer with the whole zone (minus the sisters, they say we're to aggressive). It was cool, the zone here seems really cool. We call it the Arizona zone because there's like 5 of us from Arizona ha.

I love you guys! And I hope you have great weeks! 

 

 

 

Bye,

Elder Wilson

 

 

General Conference!

Conference weekend was amazing! I really heard some amazing things. I definitely felt like there was some talks given specifically to me. My favorite talks were both by president uchtdorf, elder hollands, and elder Bednars. What did you guys think? Write me and tell me what your favorite talks were! and if you didn't get a chance to watch it, well, watch it at lds.org and then write me and tell me! These conference talks truly are scripture for our day, if we follow there council we will be able to overcome the difficulties and trials of these last days. President Monson, his counselors, and the quorum of the twelve apostles are the lords chosen prophets, seers, and revelators, and the messages they share are exactly what the lord needs and wants us to hear in these Latter-days.

 

I will be short this week. I just want to invite you all to watch, read, and study general conference. If you do so with a sincere heart, and ask your heavenly father to know if theses messages are true, you will feel an ever more abundant peace in your life, and you will know for a fact that your father in heaven loves you.

 Here is the Link:

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2013/10?cid=HPFR100413105&lang=eng

 

I love you guys,

here are some pics, my trainer elder betts came to visit Cholula today, so I got to hang with him all day!

Have good weeks!

Elder Wilson

 

 

9-30-2013

I'm really sorry to everyone I didn't respond to last week! I actually never did get the chance to come back and answer everyone. So for that my message here is going to to be kinda of short. That's okay though, because this week wasn't super exciting. Ill just tell you all a few things exciting that happened!

1. We had a leadership meeting in Puebla. It was my first one, so I didn't know what t expect. But it was super cool! I got to see a lot of my friends from the mission and we had Little Caesars Pizza at the end! Which is a really big deal in here.

2. I finally learned how to pronounce the double R in Spanish. It took me a year, but I finally got it! Becoming more and more Mexican every day!

3. I hit a year on Thursday!

4.Yesterday I confirmed Raquel, the Women who got baptized last week! I was so nervous, I don't know why, I have done it before but my leg was shaking uncontrollably. It was a really awesome experience, even though I was nervous.

I will write more next week! Watch and enjoy general conference this week!

I love you guys.

Elder Wilson

Krispy Kreme in Mexico, and the baptism of Raquel!

Heelllo! How was everyones week?Thursday is my year mark! Its been strange, because everyday i've been thinking to myself "Wow, a year ago I was in such and such place, or I was doing such and such with such and such." But not its gonna be "Wow, a year ago I was... On my mission:" Haha. But its great! I cant believe how fast its passing, im actually kind of sad cuz its all going to be over before I know it! I would also like to ask everyone to pray for the people of guerrero mexico. They were hit by a a rather large hurricane, and basically they have the same situation going on as new orleans when katrina hit. Its the state just just south of puebla, but nothing happened here, just lots of rain. But yes, keep them in your prayers!

Tuesday - Well we have a wonderful new investigator named Catalina. About a year ago her and her boyfriend Luiz were listening to the missionaries, and Luiz got baptised! He's a wonderful member in our ward who is right now preparing for his mission. Catalina however, said she was not going to change and wanted nothing to do with the missionaries.... Until last week! We ran into her in a restuarant, and she said we could come visit her. At first she was a little cold, and actually said she had a lot of doubts about what we were teaching. But on tuesday we promised her if she read and prayed, those doubts would disappear. But I won't get ahead of myself:) The rest of the day was also really great!

Wednesday - We had our district meeting in the morning, and the zone leaders popped in to surprise me. That was great! I always feel so nervous when they come to watch my district meetings. But I think it went pretty well. The rest of the day was good, we got to visit some less actives and a few members.

Thursday - We got to talk with raquel, are investigator that was just super prepared from the get go. She always brightens up our day, and well she always gives us food too:) A little girl in the had to have her appendix taken out, and shes only 2! So we went to visit the family, and we ran some errands for them that they cant do, because the little girl cant leave the house right now.

Friday - We met with Catalina again! She said that she had prayed and read. And she said that she did feel better, and that her doubts had been resolved. But she still wasnt sure about baptism. We asked her if she had prayed about baptism and she said no. We explained to her that she wouldnt know if she should be baptized  or not if she didnt ask it in a prayer. So right there we all got on our knees and she offered the prayer. The only problem was that she has a dog thatsnuts! And the second we got on her knees it thought we wanted to play. So to be honest, I have no clue what she said in the prayer, because i was basically going WWE on this dog so that it would be queit. I thought there was no way she felt the spirit. My tie and hair were all disheveled, my shirt was untucked, just a mess. But after the prayer Catalina just sat there for a couple a minutes, and she just cried. She had asked if she should be baptized on the 12th of october, and she got her answer in the very moment she asked. Even though the thing with the dog was super obnoxious, it ended up being one of the most powerful spiritual moments I've ever had in my mission. And Catalina is going to be Baptized on the 12th of october:)

Sabado - We went back with Cathia, and basically just confirmed everything she had felt the day before. It was Crazy, It was like she was a completely different person. Smiling and laughing, it was a really happy lesson. Later trhat night we had a family home evening with the garcias, who are amazing. And we were able to invite a less active named marco alor.

Sunday - It was a great day:) The highlight was definitely the baptism of Raquel. Shes such an amazing lady. She has been listening the the missionaries for nearly 7 years, and she finally made the decision to be baptized. Great day.

Im gonna attatch some photos right now, and if i dont write you right now, dont worry because Im going to come back to the internet in a few hours.

I love you guys!

Elder Wilson

Mexico Independence!

Hello Everybody!

I will be coming home a year from tomorrow! September 17th 2014!

Its weird though, i feel like im just getting comfortable here in the mission, like I'm just getting settled in, and I only have a year left!

I missed you guys last week, I'm sorry! I didn't have a ton of time to write.

But this week I am writing, So don't worry!

Okay.

Monday - We had a pretty fun pday on Monday. We went shopping in a mall here in Choula (well really we just looked around at stuff.) Then that night we had a great family home evening with an amazing family. Their son and brother  got baptized 3 years ago, and then went on his mission a year later. Since he's been gone his sister and his mom have both joined the church, and now he'll be coming home in December! Its a pretty cool story, and actually she brought her boyfriend over, and now we are teaching him also. It was a good successful day.

Tuesday - We had a zone meeting. I was surprised to see how much are zone has grown, and we now have six sister missionaries in the zone, making us 24 in all. Its amazing how many more missionary's have been arriving since the age change a year ago. Later that night we were able to have so really good lessons with investigators and less actives.

Wednesday - Was a jam packed day, we had so many lessons of high quality. We actually found a new investigator named Catalina. About 8 months ago her boyfriend got baptized, but he didn't really treat her very well, which really turned her off to the church. But now they have broken up, and  she was willing to listen to us again. We told her to forgot the bad things that maybe people had done to her, and listen to our message from scratch again. She agreed, and now she is listening to us also!

Thursday - Was a pretty slow day, we were able to visit quite a few people, but I do not know, it was still really slow. Happens!

Friday - Friday was..... Awesome!! This weekend was the  Mexican independence and in the church we had a Mexican night. Oh my goodness. Church parties in Mexico are so much better than church parties in the US. First of all, we had a good number of less actives and investigators come out. But then we had o much food! It was all seven wards from the stake, and they all brought an endless supply of delicious food. Oh my gosh i have never eaten so much in my life. It was all great fun, and a lot of really good things came from it.

Saturday - We had a lesson with Catalina, and she decided baptism is what she wants to do.. We have a baptismal service set up for her on the 12th of October! Later on we had a lesson with an investigator named Fernando, from Columbia. He came to church the last week and just showed really excited to learn more about god. Hes a very simple humble man, and we love him! We talked with him about baptism also, and he said he yes also. His service is set up for the 12th of October also!

Sunday - All of our investigators came to church, and three less actives that haven't showed up the whole time i have been here in this ward! After wards we had a lesson with Fernando at a members house where all three of there kids are leaving on missions in 2 months. They just blasted him the spirit, and afterwards he told us that that just helped him confirm his feelings that that's what he wants to follow. It was sweet.

That was my week, Tell me about yours!

I love you guys,

Elder Wilson

Buenos Tardes!

Buenos tardes! How was everyone's week??

Mine was pretty good! It was the last week of this six week transfer, but my companion and I are going to staying here in Cholula at least six more weeks! Which i am very happy about because I love it here!

I would also like to wish a happy birthday to all the august birthdays there were. I know there is lot in the family on both sides, so i won't even try to start naming them!

Okay..

Monday: We had a family home evening with a family in the ward and our investigator named Rachel. It was really fun, We played games and watched some really cool videos. Rachel is progressing more and more everyday, her baptismal date is the 22nd of this month!:)

Tuesday: Well Tuesday was pretty normal, except that we found a new family! Its a family of 7 and they have already decided they wanna get baptized! They are really awesome and super sweet. The only only problem is that their landlord doesn't like us very much. Shes always trying to kick us out... But we aren't to worried about that! We are hoping their baptisms will be the end of this month/beginning of October.

Wednesday: Wednesday we had interviews with president reeves, which was fantastic as always as always.  Then that same night we had a lesson with one our investigators, Isabel. Shes is a little more difficult, we could say. But Wednesday was really good, it was a very  spiritual lesson, and we were able to find out most of her doubts and fears of joining the church, and now we can properly help her.

Thursday: Thursday was a day where the majority of our lessons fell through. But we were able to teach that new family again and Rachel!

Friday: I went on interchanges with elder Swensen. He came to my area, and it went really well. We were able to learn from each other, and teach a lot of people. We had a family home evening with a family i absolutely love! We had a really good time, and we got to learn a lot more about them, and i feel like we really gained there trust.

Saturday: Was kinda boring My companion and i waited in the house. all day for mattresses and dressers to arrive at our house for other missionaries. Then we went to an activity for the other elders in our zone. It was supposed to be a really cool theater production. We got stuck outside though in a booth that no one visited. 

Sunday: Was a good fast Sunday. I did end up getting a little bit sick though. I'm starting to feel better today though. We found out who has changes last night. We don't, but one of the elders in our district does. He will be leaving tomorrow. Kinda sad. His name is elder Salmeron, and hes from Honduras. He will be on to better things though!

Well that was my week, i hope you all have a great one!

I love you guys!

Elder Wilson

Rachel and The Priesthood

Hey everyone!

I'm glad to hear that grandpa is doing better. Thank you for your prayers :)

Today makes 11 months now that I have been on my mission. The last 2 or 3 months have gone by super fast, and i feel like time is only speeding up haha. We had a very good week this week, lots of stuff happened.

 

Monday - We had a family home evening with a family in the ward that is really awesome. Actually that same day there son found out he is able to go on a mission, which was way cool because we thought he wasn't going to be able to because of some problems that he had before. But he can now and hes getting started on his papers this week:)

Tuesday - We had a surprise zone meeting in the morning, and then afterwards we went on exchanges with the other elders from the district. Those went well, I got work in their area for a day.

Wednesday - Not a lot of stuff happened on Wednesday, but we did get to visit with some families that really needed some help.

Thursday - We met with a woman in our ward who actually is from new jersey! So she speaks English, and so does her father. She asked me a favor though. Her younger sister who is 18 just moved to phoenix! And well she doesn't know anyone, and wants to make friends. She is living with her uncle right now, but wants to get her own place. If anyone knows of anyone who needs a roommate let me know, so that i can get the information and everything to them. She speaks English and everything, she was born in the US.

Afterwards we met some new investigators who are super great. They are a reference from St. George Utah. They visited the visitors center of the temple there, and said they would like to talk to us. Super cool couple, like 30ish years old.

Friday - Friday actually started out pretty rough. It was raining and all of our appointments were falling through, but it got a lot better. We met with our investigator named Rachel. Shes is just super awesome and super prepared. She already told us she wants to get baptized, but she has a little problem. Maybe it would help if i explained our beliefs a bit first.

You see in our church, we believe in something called the priesthood. The priesthood is the authority, or the permission to act in God's name. All of the ancient prophets like Moses, Abraham, Noah and all the rest had this power. Jesus Christ also gave this power to his 12 apostles when he was here on the earth. This power is how they performed the miracles you see in the scriptures, but it is also how they performed sacred ordinances such as baptism, or giving people the holy ghost. It was all done with this Priesthood authority. later on, Jesus Christ was killed, but his apostles were still there to lead and direct the church. With that same priesthood authority.

But with time the apostles were all either killed or exiled, leaving the earth without the Priesthood. We believe that for a time the earth was in a state of apostasy, void of the true church or God's priesthood. Many churches tried their best, and had good intentions, but without the priesthood no church could perform these sacred saving ordinances. In the early 19th century God restored his true church to the earth through a young boy/man named Joseph Smith. Who was called as a prophet once again in the earth, and with that he received the priesthood, restoring it again to the Earth.

What does this have to do with Rachel? Well Rachel used to be Catholic. About 9 months  ago her husband passed away, and at the year anniversary of the death of someone in the catholic church, they put together a mass for this, where they take part in the sacraments and stuff like that. And Rachel wants to do that.

The Problem with that, is if Rachel is baptized in the church, knowing and believing that the authority of god can only be found in the church, and then goes and partakes of the sacraments in another which doesn't have the authority, well.. Its not really the best thing for someone to do. And she knows that, so she said she wants to wait til December to get baptized so she can do the mass. Which is fine if she wants to wait, but we know she is ready now.

Well we met with Rachel on Friday. And we talked about baptism, but she was till say saying she wants to wait. We had talked about this many times before, and we always tried to be very sensitive about it. But to be honest we had just been beating around the bush, and not really doing our duty as missionaries.

My companion explained the priesthood to her again. Then i don't know what came over me, but i asked her if she believed if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only church with gods authority on the earth. She said yes. And i said " We love you and we would never want to hurt you. But that performing that mass will not help your husband. And postponing your baptism to do that is not something that's okay in gods eyes. The ordinances we can perform for the dead in temples is what will really help him." I swear we sat in silence for like 3 hours haha. I thought she was going to kick us out and tell us never to come back. A 16 year old from the ward was accompanying us for the day, and i thought he was going to cry. BUT, after a time, Rachel said okay, i will get baptized. And she now has a baptism date for September 22nd:)

It really strengthened my testimony that if the spirit is present, and we do it with love, no one is ever going to be offended from us telling them the truth and what we really think. We don't need to beat around the bush with people.

Saturday and Sunday - Were great days also, and we were able to have some really fun edifying lessons with members, and we helped some other elders find a new investigator:)

Its been a great week. The Lord has been blessing us and helping us so much. He does the same for you everyday, even if some days it doesn't seem like it. He loves you.

I love you guys too:)

 Have a great week!

Elder Wilson

Hello from Cholula, Puebla!

How was everyone's week?

My week has been pretty good, it went by super fast. I cant believe it is already Monday again. Next month i hit a year already in the mission, Its going by so fast. When I first got out on my mission i remember thinking i couldn't make it two years. Now i feel like "ah man this stinks, I have to go home in a year" Its cool how your attitude changes towards things while you're out here.

We had a seventy come to the mission last week. In the church we have a very organized leadership system in the church, which is made up of the prophet, his councilors, and the quorum of the 12 apostles. And right after them are the seventies. So it was a pretty special opportunity we had this last week. He gave us a lot of good insights and advice to help us improve in our areas. 

Other than that this week not to much happened. We did however have the confirmations of the family that was baptized last week, which of course awesome :)

I want every to keep my Great Grandfather in their prayers this week. He is the hospital with some heart problems. I sure do love him!

I love all you guys, and hope you have a great week! Remember that everything that happens in your life is for a reason, and that God has a plan for us. A magnificent plan, and everything he puts in our path is designed to make us stronger and better. Every single one of you has a potential you can't even begin to imagine.

Love you all,

Elder Wilson

8-5-13

Hello Everybody!

Hows america?? Everything is going well here in Cholula, Mexico. We've been working like crazy, and we are definitely seeing the fruits here. I am in a very awesome area, where the members are always willing to help us and there is always work. And thank you mom for the package! It arrived nice and safe, and i am happy to be sitting at the computer with contacts instead of glasses. (First time in seven months almost)

Okay...

Monday- We went to the pyramid that ois here in cholula, which is super super cool. We got back realy late though, and thats why i didnt have a ton of time to write. After wards we had a great lesson with a family who was supposed to be baptized last sunday, but they ended up have some stuff happen and they couldnt. But we were able to talk with them and help them work everything out, and theyll be getting baptiused this sunday instead. They are really awesome.

Tuesday - Well on tuesday a man just came up to us on the street and asked if we could come by and teach him, which was sweet ha. Then that nightwe had another lesson with the fam thats gonna be baptised, we did a family home evening  with them. Then we had another ghreat lesson with a woman named raquel,

Wednesday - was a good day. Lots of good lessons with members, and really good food;)

Thursday - I went on interchanges with another elder so i could do a baptismal interview with him. It was my first interview and I was super super nervous, but it was such a great experience. Shes an 18 year old young girl named sandra, and she is just really prepared. I got to hear her testimony and wow, I think it might be stringer than mine. It also made me think of my own baptismal interview, only 2 years ago i was in her spot with a missionary in front of me asking questions. (If youve never heard of a baptismal interview its not like an exam or something with really personal questions. Its juat to make sure people know what they are doing and why they are doing it. Baptism is such a sacred covenant between us and our heavenly father that it shouldnt be taken lightly.

F>riday - We had a lot of lessons with less actives, and we also got to visit the man who contacted us on tuesday. Hes actuallya boy of only 18 years. Hes very interested. Hes got some interesting ideas though, and he knows a ton of random of stuff. He also lived in the chzech republic for two years. Interesting guy.

Saturday - Not a lot, but we attended the baptism of sandra and brought some investigators with us. Its always amazing to see the glow people have when they come out of that water.

Sunday - We had church, and afer we ate with a way cool family. Their 3 kids ( 2 daughters and 1 boy) have their mission calls right now. All to the united states, which is pretty rare coming from mexico. And afterwards we had a family home evening with a family and our investigator Isabel:)

Sunday - Today... We played basketball and soccer, and thats about it.

Well that was my week. This week we have two baptisms and the ward is doing a talent show which we are paricipating in! I will give you all the details next week.

Pictures!

These should have gone with the previous post.

Goodbyes are awkward?

Hey everybody!  Hows everyones week been? I hope that everyone was able to have a very productive, enjoyable week! Mine was very good. I do have some exciting news. For those who may not have heard, my friend Ryan got his mission call! He will be going to the Paraguay Asuncion Mission, and he reports to the argentina MTC  on November 21st. Super excited for him:)

We had a pretty good, full week this week:

Tuesday - We had exchanges on tuesday, and I stayed in my area with Elder Pendleton. He just got to the mission 5 weeks ago from Utah, but his spanish is actually pretty good. It was a really fun day, and we had some really good spiritual lessons. Hes a really awesome elder. Very humble, very diligent, I feel like there is a lot i can learn from him. 

Wednesday - I was back with my companion, elder gonzales. We actually spent most of the day helping a sister in her tortilleria. Usually her kids help her out, but they were in EFY all week, So i got to learn how to make tortillas:) 

Thursday - We had some great lessons! We actually had an appointment with a young man named moises, but instead we found his mom and siblings. Turns out the ,mom is interested and the whole family is willing to hear us! Its a very gratifying feeling to see the lord preparing people to hear the gospel.

Friday - We had zone conference in nealtican,a town about 20 minutes away. We got to listen to our leaders and president Reeves. They gave us some really good advice for our areas and president talked to us about getting to know our heavenly father better, which was just great.

Saturday - I honestly have nothing toreport about saturday except that us and some youth found a bunch of snakes! (Im sure krista is squirming in her seat haha:) Ill send pics!

Sunday - Sunday was great. We had ward conference and we had an investigator show up who wentto EFY (we didnt even know) and now is ready to join the church! And then two more came and they actually talked directly with the stake president for about 10 minutes, and now they are on the verge of getting baptized! It was crazy, and none of it through our efforts personally. BUT it was a little bittersweet because i wont get to be a part of their conversions. I got called last night, and I have changes. Im leaving this ward! Man changes are so hare. The good thing is that ill stay in the same zone, so i wont go far. That does mean howver that the new missionary that ill be training and i will be opening a brand new area where there wasnt missionaries previously. That should be cool!

Today - Tomorrow is changes, so im just saying by to everyone all day. I do not like good byes, they are awkward and sad.

But yes, that was my life this week! Hope everyone is doing well. Did anyone get a chance to read the Book of Mormon? Let me know!

I love you guys,

Elder Wilson

Group Email!

Hey everybody! Okay so i know I'm terrible at writing everybody every week, and for that I apologize! Ive been wanting to set up a weekly letter system like this for awhile now, i just didn't know exactly how I wanted to do it. But thanks to my friend Sam Heywood who is serving in New York, I think i figured that out. Hopefully he doesn't mind that I've stolen his idea:)

Okay so...

Monday - It was P-day or our preparation day. But it was kind of rushed because I had a dentist appointment in Puebla, so we had to cut everything short for the day. In the evening when we returned to our area we went and had a family home evening with a family that recently came back to church. It was really fun and uplifting, its cool to see how committed the family is to the gospel.

Tuesday - We had a zone meeting in the morning. President Reeves surprised us and showed up haha. It's always good to see president, always sharing wisdom and knowledge with us. After it was a pretty normal day, we had a couple of lessons, and one investigator let me ride his donkey. (I'll attach pictures of that.) After we had our ward council and ya! The wards been working great with us.

Wednesday - Nothing really exciting happened. We had a couple lessons, and played soccer for a bit with an investigator and his brother.

Thursday - Almost the same exact day as Wednesday.

Friday - We brought a young man whose been taking the discussions to mutual, and all the youth in the ward played soccer. He had a ton of fun and was super interested in all the programs the church has and how its recognized. I believe he'll be baptized, we just need to keep working with him and help him to gain his own testimony through the Holy Ghost.

That night when I got home the Zone Leaders gave me call. I'm going to be training a new missionary this transfer!

Saturday - I was in Puebla all day at presidents house for the capacitation for new trainers. My comp stayed here with another elder.

Sunday - Was a good day. We went to church and then visited members, giving them the first discussion. We do that so that their faith can be strengthened, and so that they can think of who this message might help:)

Welp That was my week:) I'm doing great everybody, and I love being here on my mission! Remember that the lord loves you and is always aware of your situations and trials. God lives and loves every single one of his children. His Gospel has been restored to the earth just as in ancient times. I promise you that that is true, and that that knowledge has brought so much hope and happiness to my life.  I'd like to invite everyone to read Moroni chapter 7 In the Book of Mormon. If you don't have a Book of Mormon you can read the chapter here:

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/moro/7?lang=eng

I'd love to hear your thoughts and insights!

Remember to respond to me in a separate email if you'd like to respond. (and please do!) It can get a little confusing when everybody is responding on the same page. You can just open a new on, or use a conversation e already have:)

Okay guys, I love and miss every one of you so much!

Til next week,

Elder Wilson

New Friends!

Jacob and a new friend

Unfortunately there is no information on this photo but I thought I would post it anyways!

Mothers Day Call

Jacob was able to call home on Mothers day,  we were all hoping to be able to Skype with him but unfortunately that didn't work out. He called to Grandma Debbie's house and all of us had an opportunity to speak with him. He is doing great and seems to be settling in well. One interesting thing that he told Justin was that he was dreaming in Spanish, apparently he has a good grasp on the language!

Zone Conference / Baptisms

A little behind in posting...

Paintball!

A little behind in posting, but here are some pictures from March and April 2013. He is playing paintball in Mexico, so do not worry!

News Year Eve

This is short, just some pictures of Jacob News Year Eve in CA, I believe.

Elder Betts

Jacob & elder betts. They are currently in techeacan ( two hours outside of puebla.) Love this kid! — 

 

 

He made it

Hey everybody! I'm in Mexico! I've been here for about a week now. It has definitely been a big culture shock, and it turns out I don't know Spanish very well ha. I am in a city called Techeacan about two hours away from the city of Puebla. The first couple days, I'm not going to lie, I didn't like it. First, because my bags got lost on the way here, so i couldn't really get moved in  until  couple days after I got here. I felt all out of place and plus I couldn't understand anyone! I was feeling that same homesick feeling I first felt when I left on my mission. I started to get more comfortable after a couple days though. I just had to keep praying for peace and comfort, and let myself just relax. It turns out this place isn't that different from home after all. People are just speaking a different language! There are things that are pretty different of course, but for the most part people live normal everyday lives and do normal everyday things!

 

My companion is awesome, and I really admire him for what he has to put up with. This is his first time training, or even as a senior companion. He speaks a  little English so we can communicate around the apartment, but if we have to go do anything or teach, he's pretty much on his own because I can't speak the language yet! And to make it worse, we're opening a  new area. So he hasn't been here before and neither have I. I would say we get lost at least once day ha. The other night our one investigator didn't show up for our lesson,which was pretty disappointing. We came home and I could tell he was super frustrated, and so was I. So I busted out a  mini ping pong table Eli had sent me, turned on some music, and we just blew off some steam for a  bit. Oh ya, his name is elder Betts

 

I did have one cool experience last night. Usually in lessons I can't understand much, and  i saw very little if anything. Well last night we visited one of our investigators, just to drop something off. Well he invited us in and elder Betts started talking to him. As usual i couldn't understand anything. I sat in silence for a good 40 minutes trying not zone out, and at least try to comprehend something so I could give input I could tell something was wrong, but I didn't know what. Then I caught one phrase. Something along the lines of "i want to change, but its not possible." I intervened. i had his attention, and my heart was pounding. He was looking right t me, waiting for me to say something. I said (or at least tried in my broken Spanish) "I don't exactly know what's going on, but I know that Jesus Christ lives and through him we can do anything."I then shared a scripture from ether in the book of Mormon on faith, and continued to testify that God loves us and can work miracles in our lives if we have faith. Than my companion took over again. Later, we showed him how to pray, and he offered the closing prayer for us. It was awesome. I don't know if he understood what I was trying to say, but I know he felt and understood  the spirit, and that's all that matters. His name is Romario, hopefully things workout so that we can continue to help him.

 

Here is my address for Mexico.

 

Mexico Puebla South Mission

31 Poniente #109 Int. 201

Col. Chul Vista

72420 Puebla, Puebla

Mexico

 

Hope everybody has a good week!

Finally on his way to MEXICO

Tara posted:
 
Just talked to Jake and he is at the airport. He gets into Puebla at 9:30 pm, he is flying first class. He will email the mission home address when he has access to a computer. He sounds good...

Christmas 2012!

Jacob was able to Face Time with the family on Christmas day. Only problem was we couldn't see Jacob, it was not working on his end. He was able to see us though, which probably is more important! He says he that he is doing great but is ready to go to Mexico.