Thursday, September 16, 2010

September 15, 2010

Dear Family,

whazz up everyone?! hey thanks for all the e-mails!! i haven't gotten that many in a long time! it was sweet!!! so thanks so much! it was really good to hear from all of you...(except chanae;) hahaha it's all good chanae, i know, you don't hear from me either. ;)
so no, my comp is still here with me unfortunately. i say unfortunately because i really want him to go to brasil and learn to love it like i do. but we continue to have lots of fun and he keeps me going lots of the time. once in a while i need some extra "greenie power" to keep me going. especially in the mornings. i have never been a morning person, and lately it has been really tough. although today I jumped out of bed i woke my comp up! so yeah... as for everything else. basically the same old stuff. this past week was a crazy week needless to say. lots of service projects going on and we had a meeting with a 70, elder maynes. it was really good and i learned alot.
so our service project was lots of fun. we live with 2 other elders and their recent converts family bought a house to move in to, they are basically homless at the moment, and the house needs lots of work. some of the plumbing was terrible. broken pipes and what not. so me and elder garcia, a guatamalen elder, took it upon us to basically REPIPE the whole house. hahahaha...yeah... it was fun. i did actualy enjoy getting down and dirty and doing something different for a change. and being able to use my plumbing skills was fun. so while we were doing that, my comp and elder lemke were painting the house. it was alot of fun overall. well like i said, nothing to new is going on. we are at the moment looking for investigators that will go some where. we constantly have new investigators, but the trick is to find the ones who will go to church and read and all that good stuff. we usually have about 4-5 new people a week. so you can image how hard it is to find some one "golden" or solid. but it is alot of fun.
so did chanae and bryce not get the condo they where looking at? are they going to try to buy it.
oh, so yesterday we were mowing a members lawn, then she invited us in for some lemonade. while we were talking it up and drinking some juice, her daughter was showing off her new i pod to us. WOW!!!!! i am so behind on technology!!! it was the new ipod touch!! dang man!! it is so legite!!!!! don't know if i would buy one, i would have to play with one for a few hours first. but it was sweet!
so there are a few thing i was wondering if you could send me. a few cd's actually. we need more music for our car. in my room i have a few cd's that i got in brasil. they are in my closet on the top shelve. it looks like a blank cd, but if you look close it says Missao Fortaleza. and there are two of them. the other one i think it says Que coisa boa! so if you could send both of those and i was wondering if michael, with all his free time, could go through my lotr sound tracks and pick out the good songs, not the dark ones :), and burn them on a cd and send them to me as well. and the pirates sound track to please. that would be awesome. so then we don't go crazy with all the same music.
so mom, i totally forgot that i had put that reminder on your phone! hahaha, i'm sorry it mad you cry. when i read it i felt bad but started laughing at the same time. just because i totally forgot about that. Well, happy 2 YEARS!!! crazy huh! only two more months to go. actually not even that. lets see, if you want to get technicall about it...... it would be.... 57 days! so almost 2 months... but who's counting. ;) anyways...
The Church is True!!!!! Jesus Cristo is our Savior!! and the book of Mormon is True!! I love you all!! and i hope you all have a great week!

eu amo voces!!!

Elder Wilson

hey michael, with all your free time, you should see how fast you can read the book of mormon!! i have always wanted to do that, but i always get caught up with other stuff. and i don't really have that kinda of time as a missionary. but, you should totally do that, it would be so sweet!!!!!!!!!!!
have fun dude!!!


September 1, 2010

Dear Family,

hey everyone. so whats new this week? that totally sucks that michael had to get a screw in his mouth! is it really big? you should send some pics.
as for my comp and i, we are doing pretty good. nothing to new. although the other day i had a super amazing experience! so this kid that we are teaching, Sergio, he is part of the big family, completely blew me away on friday! we get to his house planning on inviting him to be baptized and to go over the 3rd lesson. so we start off the lesson and he just starts asking all kinds of questions. who was joseph smith? what did Christ mean when he said "other sheep i have which are not of this fold"? What does it mean to carry your cross? and if this, meaning the church, is the only way? after answering all of his questions, he busts out a few scriptures in the bible (this kid knows the bible better than i do!) around the theme of prayer. ask and ye shall receive... when two or more of you are gathered in my name there i will be also... stuff like that. then he says to use, "you two, are men of God, so if we pray right now, God will be with us." we agreed. then he said "so right now, we are all going to pray together. if this is true, i need to know so i can follow." so right then, we all knelt down and he offered one of the most amazing prayers i have ever heard! ( this whole time i was just blown away by the faith of this kid! i couldn't believe what he was proposing to us! it was freakin awesome!) and during that prayer i felt the spirit so strong. you could just say my whole body was on fire! it was truly amazing. so after the prayer i asked him how he felt. and unfortunately he felt nothing. so we went over how God will always answer us, but it will be in his time and his way. then we talked about baptism and that by accepting to get baptized and working towards a set date, then he would also be showing the Lord that he truly wants to know. and he accepted our invite to be baptized on the 11 of sept.! it was so sweet!!! now we just need to get the mom to church so she can get a baptismal date as well! so we are very excited for them.
other than that, the work is going on. lots and lots of door knocking!!!

thanks a ton for the letter.
well i hope you all have a great week!!! thanks for everything!! I love you all!!!

elder wilson

August 25, 2010

Dear Family,

so i have some catching up to do because of last weeks "no" e-mail. Me and my comp are doing good. we have a baptism coming up on the 11th and hopefully another shortly after! we are currently teaching a family of 7. A mom and her 6 kids. 4 of the kids are over 8! so we are working hard and hoping and praying that all will work out with them so that they can get baptized soon. the oldest son, sergio, is totally solid! he liked church and really wants to know if the bom is true. and said he will definitely get baptized when he knows its true! so our next visit we want to give him a date to work towards. the mom, silvia, has to work on sundays, so we are trying to find a time with her for when she can come to church! but we are super excited for all of them.
oh, and last week, we were visiting a less active family and started talking about brazil. how my comp is going there, when the boy said, hey, i have a friend who is brazilian! No way!!! i said, where does he live!!? so right after our visit with them, we ran over to the house knocked on the door, and spent 45 min talking to the mom in Portugues!!!!!!!! it was so sick!!!!! i loved it!!!!! unfortunatley for me, i have totally lost my accent, but it was still so fun. and we have another visit tonight! so we are taking over a bom in portugues and it will be sweat!!!! you know what is funny, Marli, the mom, said she was going to hook me up with her niece, who lives in brasil! haha, yeah, i got a kick out of that.
so yes, my comp is still here, and i still continue to pray that he will get is visa soon. we are doing good though. my spanish continually gets better, and my portugues just kinda sits there and does nothing. and my english sucks! my comp is always correcting me. it's not as bad as it was when i was in brasil, but it isn't that great either.
well, i'm out of stuff to write,soooo.... i hope you all have a great week! thanks for the e-mails and for everything!! I love you all!!!!! the Church is true!!! the Book of Mormon is true!!!!! I challenge you all to talk to some one about the gospel and then see the blessing that come from it!!!!!! Amo Voces!!!

Elder Wilson

August 4, 2010

Querida Familia,

so this week has been quit interesting. lots of random and different things have happened.
so first of all, Thank you so much for the packages!!!!!! we got them Monday night!!! it was freakin awesome!!!!!! thanks for everything!! and those ties are pretty sweet to! and yes, i did get the birthday card. i got it a couple of weeks ago, but thank you so much! and please tell grandma and grandpa wilson thank you for the chocolates and the money!!!! and grandpa campbell! for my b-day, to be honest, we did nothing. just another normal day. but we really didn't have time to do anything anyways. i had even forgotten it was my birthday till about 8:45, while i was studying. anyways, we plan on making some cake and cookies today!
so i have been having a blast speaking to my comp in portugues!! it is freakin awesome! i will be sad when my "son" gets his visa and leaves, but also very happy for him because i know he will love Brasil just as much as i do! it is great because i my portugues is getting back up to speed, and my spanish is getting alot better because now i do all the talking basically, my comp doesn't speak any spanish and doesn't understand alot. so that kinda leaves it up to me, but he, my comp, teaches in portugues and the hispanics can usually understand him. so thats cool!
so the other day, when went by some old investigators that had been taught about a year ago by the missionaries. the parents aren't interested at all but said we could go by on sunday. so we dropped by and the parents were gone, but the kids were outside shoot hoops. so we started talking to them and then their 23 yr. old sister came out. so we contacted her and she was interested. so we shared a brief but powerful message about how the book of mormon is important and how she can find out through prayer! it was very cool and you could just see the spirit working on her!! she told us that she wanted to learn more and that she wanted to find out if it was true for herself!!! it was totally awesome! so we have a return appointment on saturday, but we will probably be teaching her at a library or somewhere else because her parents won't accept it. that's what she told us. so we are super stoked to talk to her again on saturday and are praying very hard that she will go "the distance".
and yesterday we also had another interesting exp. (my comp is just getting loaded with all kinds of crazy experiences in his first few weeks.) we go to our car, it was parked in front of some guys house while we were tracting, and the guys comes out and says," you know, after you pulled up i went inside and read for an hour stuff about you guys on the internet". then he just blew up!!! He yelled at us that we were brainwashed and that we worship multiple gods and all other kinds of crap! it was so crazy!! so i calmly told him we would like to sit down with him and explain what it is that we believe in. but he just kept on yelling at us telling us how crazy and screwed up we are. so we just walked away! but it was so crazy! i get sad by people like that. because the chances of them ever accepting the gospel are very slim, which means we will probably never see them in the celestial kingdom. but it did give us something to laugh at a little later after we got home. it's interesting how things like that always happen when you are knocking doors.
well family, i love you all so much!!! thanks for all of your love and support!!! i hope you all have a great week!!!!
Amo Voces!!!!!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

July 28, 2010

Querida Familia,

Wow, so where do i begin....
Monday i got "E.T.ed". i was in a car all morning driving up to an area in the north, where i would wait for my new comp., who came striaght from the mtc! (fresh blood!) and he is waiting for his visa so he can go to..... guess where...!!!BRASIL!!!!!!!!!!! and guess what his portugues is pretty dang good! so we talk in portugues all the time!!!! it is soooooo nice to finally be able to use my portugues with someone! i was teaching my last comp, but it just isn't the same. My comps name is Elder Pearson by the way. he is from provo. so after meeting up with my comp, we then drove another 2 hrs to get to our new area. where niether of us have ever stepped foot before. but luckily we live with two elders who basically know what is going on up here. Now, I am living out in the middle of no where, or should i say, the middle of cornfields! (my comp says hi) We drive every where we go because it is all so stinkin far away! and yesterday ew were knocking doors for more than 2 hrs..... it was really long. but hopefully things will get better as we go. i'm sure they will.
so to be honest, i feel freakin old, but at the same time, i don't feel any different at all. so yeah. didn't really do anything yesterday. we don't have anything in the house to make, so i couldn't really make anything. but the Branch Presidents wife gave me a brownie with a candle in it, so that was cool. i probably won't get the packages till the 13 of august. that is when President is coming up here. and please tell grandma and grandpa wilson, and grandpa campbell and aunt lynette thanks for me! lynette sent some of her energy/protein bars. they were pretty good.
so since we are out here in the middle of nowhere, i will probably be forced to by a gps for my birthday, so we can find our way around. i hope they will have some cheap ones. we will probably go and look at those today.
well, thats about all the new stuff that is going on with me. i hope you are all doing good and that everyone is happy. thanks for all of the e-mails! it was great to hear from everyone!!!!
Eu Amo Voces!!!!!
take care!

Elder Wilson

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

July 23, 2010

Dear Family,

so how is everyone enjoying the mountain? having lots of fun hanging out and riding 4 wheelers and all that good stuff. I'm sure you are.
so this week was super long and crazy, but really good. like i mentioned earlier we had a 4 day training meeting with the Pres, his wife and the assistants. all of the mission leaders were there, zone leaders, district leaders and trainers. it was really good. i learned alot! it was basically going over being good people teachers and not lesson teachers. basically went over stuff i already knew, but just more in depth and reminded me of things. I am definitely excited to put this stuff into practice. but needless to say, i am so tired though. 4 days straight of training meetings, sitting down the whole time, trying to stay awake. it was pretty intense.
So last night i received some awesome news!!! i got a letter from brasil from one of my companions. he sent me a picture of a man that got baptized that we had taught in my last area. he had been investigating the church for almost a year, but couldn't get baptized because he wasn't married to his "wife". so that was awesome to see that he got baptized! and he also told me that the family that we had found and started teaching there also got baptized!!!!! i was so excited!! i basically started cheering and laughing from excitement and happiness. My comp came running in the room, "what happened?'. it was pretty funny. but i am so happy to know that they got baptized! i don't remember how much i told you about them, but they are such an awesome family! unfortunately he didn't send me a pic, so i am going to write him and see if i can get one. that was such a cool experience though. to know that all the hard work and stress and love i felt for them had payed off. now, obviously it wasn't me that converted them, i was just there and the spirit worked through me and the other elders that came after. but i guess the amazing thing is knowing that they made the decision to follow the Savior and get baptized! it just made me so happy. I LOVE MISSIONARY WORK! it truly brings the greatest happiness. i wish you all could have felt what i felt last night. just the immense joy and rejoicing that came to my heart!!! the happiness that comes from knowing that they are following our Savior!!!!! it is awesome!!!!! there truly are not words to describe it!! needless to say, it was freaking awesome! and now we have to go back to visit Brasil!!!! i have so many people to see and that i want you guys to meet!!!!!
so right now we are teaching an argentinan lady. her friend from utah referred her to us. she is totally awesome! she is excited to learn and is reading the scriptures. during our lessons, her friend from utah calls and sits in on the speaker phone and helps us out. it's pretty cool! we are totally excited to teach her.
well everyone, i hope you have lots of fun at the reunion. I Love you all! thanks for the e-mails and everything!!!! A Igreja e Verdadeira!! Jesus Cristo e nosso Salvador!!!!! e O Livro de Mormon e verdadeiro!!!! Amo voces!!!

Elder Wilson


Tuesday, July 20, 2010

July 14, 2010

Querida familia,

Hey everyone! whats up? so what is new down on the wilson roundabout?
so where is Elder Hawks going on his mission. is he in the country or out of it? Brasil?

So i am doing good. nothing to new around here. me and my comp are getting along good. and i am the dd! (designated driver) how crazy huh. so when ever we do take the car, which isn't alot, i drive. Driving in chicago is pretty interesting, but not to bad. at least i am a better driver than my last comp. he scared me!. wow, well like i said, not to much new is going on around here. yes, i am still zone leader.
this up coming week we are going to do a big training meeting. 4 days to be exact! so i will be out of my area for 4 days. so i will e-mail next week on friday. okay.
sorry that this is super short. but i am drawing lots of blanks.
the work continues like always, my portugues continues to get screwed up because of freakin spanish ;). but all is going well. How is michael likin his job? how do you like workin lots of hours?
well, love ya all! the church is true!!!

elder wilson
Amo Voces