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