Week 8

 Alrighty. So this week we have been pretty dang busy. We have had
quite a few meetings. The meeting that was last tuesday ended up being
6 hours long!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh well, it was pretty good! We enjoyed it!
Me and my companion taught two English classes this week. Its
interesting, lol. We teach two really cool guys, and they are working
at getting their GED's but they cant understand the english portion so
they come to us to learn. Its awesome. We also helped a lady in our
ward take out the cabinets in her kitchen because she is repainting
it, before she moves. Its always fun to do service. Me and my
companion get fed SO MUCH! Lol. Kinda funny, we actually enjoy when we
get to stay at home because we can rest for 30 mins. Yah. So the other
day I poured an ice cold cup of water on one of the english Elders
that we live with, while he was taking a shower. It was incredibly
funny. However his retaliation was quite good. I went to go grab one
of my peanut butter cups out of the freezer when i find that i cant.
It so happens that in response to the cup of water, Elder Lim took all
of my peanut butter cups, set them in tupperware filled it with water
and then stuck it in the freezer. Needless to say, when i had gone to
grab one i found them all stuck in ice. It was quite hilarious. We all
had a good laugh and it was pretty entertaining to watch Elder Thomas
thaw them out because of how bad he wanted one.
      So yesterday me and my companion had a couple interesting
experiences. First off, following our dinner, we had an investigator
we had planed to stop by. As we were walking down her street, we saw
two guys standing behind their truck, drinking. They saw us, and so
out of common courtesy we waved and smiled. One of them waved us over
and we tried to ignore it, however the other, started to franticly
flail his arms in an intoxicated attempted gesture to have us approach
them. And so, once again out of courtesy we headed over to speak with
them. We talked for 2 or 3 minutes just about where we were from and
small talk like that. However, one of the men was so drunk, he was
leaning on his truck just so he could stand up, and slurring all his
words together. I frankly was quite impressed could even understand
what he was saying. We clearly saw that these two really had no true
desire to hear a single thing about our message and so my companion
told them that we had an appointment and needed to leave. However, the
man who was still able to stand and talk somewhat clearly, did not
take the news all that well. He complained to us how we needed to stay
and talk to his completely intoxicated about god, because that is what
he needed, however after another min the conversation had switched
topics again and was going downhill fast! This time me and my
companion just took a step back and said, 'well we gotta go, bye!' We
then waved, turned around, and continued on our path to our
investigators apartment. However not even 20 feet after turning
around, the man that was complaining to us, now was coming up behind
us shouting at us. We stopped so that he could speak with us once
more, and he shared how he felt we were doing at our job. We took the
insults, have of which i didn't quite understand and my companion
didn't care to translate, and then once again, we continued on our way
to the investigators apartment. She was busy and so she couldn't talk,
but asked us to come by a different day. We then walked out of the
apartment complex on our way to visit a less active family that lived
just a few houses up the street. When we got back onto the street we
saw our two new friends, now walking up the street, carrying their
case of beer in their hands. We just ignored them and went on. We
turned into the new apartment complex where the family was and knocked
on their door. However they weren't home. As we turned around we saw
our two friends waiting in the court yard sitting down, once again
drinking. However at this time, they had their backs turned to us. Now
me and my companion had really no idea what the two wanted but we
weren't looking to cause these two to become more animated then they
previously were. And so, we slipped out the back alley, and went on to
the next area to try another family. As we were walking away, me and
my companion were laughing about the experience and how ridiculous the
men were. Them my companion realized his hand now smelled like beer
from having to shake the mens hands for so long. That made us laugh
even more.
      Now, later that evening as many of our attempts to visit
families were falling through, we decided to try a less active family
that lived on the other side of town, because Elder Thomas hadn't seen
them in quite a while. After getting lost for a min or two, we found
our way to the house, and knocked on their door. No one was home,
however, the neighbors T.V. was on and so we said what the heck. We
hadn't had much luck that day, so what could it hurt knocking on this
door to see if we could share a quick message. When we knocked, we
heard a man shout,' who is it!!!!!' My companion replied, ' we are
missionaries,' he said okay and then told us to wait just one sec.
When the door opened the conversation went as followed,
-hi, we'r......
-psh. Ha! Yah, right guys!!!!!!!! (SLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!)

My companion wasn't even allowed to get to words in before he
interrupted. And so we walked out.
I now think i can understand why my companion is so intent of focusing
of investigators that are referrals. I can only say that some of the
people here are crazy! However, i can also say that the some of the
people here also GREAT! We have three Sister's in our ward that refer
to us as mijos. They honestly treat us like their own children. They
are so sweet and kind it's insane. We also have been working a lot,
trying to help three of our recent converts. They have such difficult
lives and living situations, but we do our best to help in any way we
can to help bring them a sense of comfort, peace, and friendship. The
ward that i'm serving in is really one of a kind!

As always i love you all. I hope you are all doing good. I enjoy
hearing from everyone. Have a good week!

- Elder Wilson

Week 7

My week so far.

So i got here on tuesday at around 2:30PM i think. Heck i was so
tired, i could barely read the direction signs, let alone tell the
time on my watch. Lol. But i think it was like 2-2:30. We then found
the mission President and his family, along with the assistants to the
president, all waiting for us by the baggage claim. We got all of our
luggage and bags and headed over to the mission home. There we had
food waiting for us! SCORE!!!!!!! I can't express how much we were
dying for some good old american food, and man it tasted great lol:)
Following that we went and started the in field orientation. We
received packets with all of our information and stuff. We got Medical
Insurance Cards, our prepaid money cards and other stuff to that
extent. They laid some ground rules for how some of the procedures
were set and then told us that we would get the whole shebang on the
following Tuesday when we would have a 3 hour class. Yay :,( lol. And
then came the iPads.  They handed them out to all of us and laid the
rules out for those. Haha. The best part is as of right now, we don't
pay for them, however that means we don't get to keep them when we
come home. But goodness its so nice to have to carry all my books in
my bag. I have them all just on the iPad. And it also has all the area
information so..... NO PAPERWORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's awesome. Its so
easy to pull up records and maps whenever we need. It is such a great
tool! Now, following the iPads i had an interview with the Mission
president, Presidente Villanueva. He is super nice, it was nice to get
to talk to him. Following that, we got our new companions. That took a
good while. It was nice though. My current companion is Elder Thomas,
or as he likes to spell it Elder Tomás. Lol. Oh well, he's a goofy
guy. Really cool though and focused on working hard. We then took all
of our stuff and got ready to get to our area. My area is the largest
in the mission. It was a good 30 min drive from the mission home, but
the nice thing was that we had a dinner appointment already waiting
so, the first thing we did, was go and EAT! It was a really cool
family. Just an elderly man and his wife. My companion liked to make
fun of me because i couldn't keep up in the conversation. Haha. Oh
well, i'll eventually get the hang of it. Its just weird because even
though this is a spanish ward, there are a lot of white people so
church is held in half english and half spanish.
    So I'm sitting in the local laundry mat, waiting for my clothes to
dry as i type this up. Its kinda funny because all the people stare at
us as they see 4 guys all dressed the same, carrying weird man purses
and sitting next to each other. Lol. Its great.
    The time out here has been good. I cant explain how true the
statement " the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days" is.
Everyday is long, and we get a ton of stuff done but what feels like
two days turns out to really be like 6. Its good though. Today we are
gonna take a trip to a market and see if we can find some cool cheap
stuff. We'll see how that goes. As always i love you guys. Thanx for
all the emails. They are great to read. Until next week,

- Elder Wilson

Josh with Mission President and his wife

Week 6

so tomorrow i fly out at like 7:30 AM. however we have to be in the reception by 3 for who knows what reason. Oh well. I'm not supposed to be using this time like normal email time. It's just to let you all know that i will be leaving tomorrow and i was told that when i get to my mission i will email again. But i have no idea what time that will be at. So here you guys go. Once again i will be getting no sleep prior to my travels. Haha. Love you all and you should here again from me once I get to my mission however if not, then on my next Preperation day, you will get a massive email. lol.

Week 5

Alrighty. So this past week was really good. We enjoyed it a lot. However we've been going through teachers like crazy. Our night teacher, Hermano Zumaya, wasn't here this last Thursday through Saturday for some personal business, but we got him back on Monday. Our substitute's name was Hermano Soto. He was awesome. he spoke really fast which was hard to understand the first half an hour or so, but it was good for us to here because no one speaks as slow as we do. lol. It was really good though. We enjoyed his humor and love of teaching us. He really was awesome. We even convinced him to show us pictures of his wife. He just got married 4 weeks ago in the Veracruz temple and showed us some pictures. It was awesome. lol. He had some good stories to share with us. Now this past week was our last time with Hermano Cruz, our morning teacher. He started school and so we had to say goodbye on Saturday. We didn't like that, but we really enjoyed the time we spent with him! On Monday and yesterday, we were taught by Hermano Sanchez, but he gets his new group of missionaries tomorrow, and so we will yet again, get a new teacher. lol. it'll be good though, all the teachers her, are really nice and cool. We love them.

Okay, so what else. We watched a devotional on Sunday that was given by David A. Bednar. He was talking about finding the character of Christ. He was explaining how we should not learn about Jesus but of him. In all the talk was way better then any words could possibly describe. And later that night we watched a video called, " How rare a possession." In all the day was just AMAZING! i loved it so much. After the movie we said good-bye to a bunch of the missionaries that were leaving on Monday that we've been hanging out a lot with. That was sad but then we realized how next week, that is us.

On Monday we took district pictures for the goodbye collage that they make for us this Sunday. We all have mixed emotions but regardless, it is only for the better! 

Besides that not to much else to talk about. We have been enjoying the time we have left here, and for once in my life i can actually enjoy reading, Lol! on Monday i started, "Jesus the Christ" and have been reading it every chance i get! Oh and i got my 2nd haircut today, figured i might as well have got it before i have to start paying for them. Well yah. It's been a great week. 

Thanx everyone for all the emails! Love you guys 

-Elder Wilson

(That was our last day with Hermano Cruz)

Week 4

Alrighty, so i'm sorry but i dont think i have that much to talk about this week. But we'll see how it goes.

So this week we have really been just thrown everything all at once. lol. I think they tried teaching us 4 verb tenses in one week. maybe 5. 'm just glad that i learned all of it in school and it is just a refresher for me because there are others here, who are becoming really scared and disheartened because they dont feel like they are progressing. Honestley though, All of us are. Everyone has increased there spanish 10 fold. if not more haha. I found myself speaking faster then i could rwegister in my hear the other day. It was quite interesting. I knew what i was saying and it made since but when i was thinking about what i was saying, I realized i was like two sentences ahead of my though process. Haha. Not that i'm at all fluent because i'm not, but it is quite interesting. On tuesdays when we do our hour service project, i was speaking to the latinos in about 85% spanish and 15% spanglish. It probably sounded aweful to them but they understood. Lol. 

Our district is really getting along pretty well. i enjoy it! They are a good group of young adults with amazing hearts. 

Last night we had a devotional given by this guy who's name was like 15 letters long. I wrote it down in my journal but im just going to call him Elder Salinas because i dont remember his first name at all. lol. His talk though was great! he talked about love in Jesus Christ and i couldnt stop listening. I dont even recall my mind going on tangent, excpet for 'How in the world can my companion sleep through this?' lol. I love Elder Elton but honestly he kills me sometimes. 

I bore my testimony in entirely spanish last Sunday, because it was fast and testimony meeting. That was interesting to say the least.

But besides that our week has just been flying by. We are all amazed that next week will be our last full week here. It´s crazy. But we are more then excited to get out into our mission fields. 

Thanks for all the emails guys i appreciate them! and pray that i dont get burnt playing soccer today, because it seems to be my companions favorite pass time. 2+ hours of soccer on preparation days. Lol. 

- Sincerely,

     Elder Wilson

Week 3

So, this week has been great. Me and my companion had our first true companionship invitory. It´s where we discuss how we think things are going between us and we think we are doing as a companionship. Well, it was nice. Think of it like a Serious venting session. Lol. no, he's a great guy, so we really didnt have to much to go over.

  On the topic of Spanish, we have been progressing however, we all feel like we need to learn faster, so as a district, the twelve of us have decided to commit to only speaking Spanish in the classroom. We start that tonight. we'll see how that goes. hopefully it works out. 

  So me and the other Elders have been trying to find out if we gain any weight but the stupid scale is in Kilograms! lol. right now I'm at 72.5Kg so right under 160. so honestly, im about the same. 

  I got my first hair cut since I've been here, earlier today. It is nice because it was free, but i was worried that the lady was gonna cut the back to short and i wouldnt be able to cover my bald spot. She doesnt speak English, so i couldnt really explain, but apparently my broken spanish was adequate enough to explain, because she left it long eenough. HAHA:)

  Holy Crap! The tienda(mini store) that they have here, now caries JARRITOS! I am extatic over it. By far the best mexican soda! I saw it and was like NO WAY! Good thing they give us an allowance! it's nice to be able to buy sweets and snacks. Teehee:) 

   So the rain has been that bad right now. We are kinda sad. It is so amazing when it rains here! It is constantly like 75-83 and so right after the rain we can just walk outside and not worry about the cold. Haha. 

  I will say, if there is one thing i wish i could change, is the freaking amount of all the dang mosquitos! ugh, i wann kill them all. The thing is two that i hadn't got bit a single time until to nights ago. It was really warm so i decided to sleep on top of my covers and bang! i wake up at 3 AM, to myslef scratching my arms, and was like oh, heck no! i went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, to find 4 massivee white bumps do to me scratching!. By the time i got ready later that morning they had gone down but the area around them is all red. i tried to take a picture. Hopefully it will send. Needless to say, i have learned to sleep under the covers for the rest of the duration. Even if that means die of heat. Lol.

  On Tuesday night we had another Local church authority come give a devotional. It was awesome. I always think that im not going to enjoy it, and am going to have to force myself to stay awake, but nope! the talks they give are great, (However my companion somehow manages to fall asleep through everyone! oh well. I still love him anyways.)

  Well i dont know what else to say. Our teachers make fun of us for having to dedal with the food here. They all say that it is so much better outside the CCM. and they tell us that the taco trucks are amazing-_- oh well. I just make sure to eat a banana or two each day so that my stuck doesnt get to messed up. haha!

  Well that's it for this week. I'll try and add some pictures!

-Elder Wilson

Week 2 addendum :)

Josh also sent this to Rob today.  We are cracking up over our very picky eater and the food! and the wonderful spirit and growth that is happening. 

Hey dad,

So its been great here, ( Minus the food, lol, some food i just have to plug my nose while i eat)

My spanish is coming along. I have a feeling missionary work has changed a lot since you've served:P we actually dont do a lot of memorizing scriptures and lessons. we memorize key things,  like the invitation to be baptized, and the goal of a missionary. All the scripture memorization is on your own time. It makes it a little more difficult, but no one said the job was going to be easy. the devotional we had on sunday wws beyond phenominal. We had one on tuesdsay too, but it didnt come close. On sunday , i felt as if he was talking to me personally, even though i know it was for all of us there. He also quoted the "14th article of faith." i am determined to find him one day before i leave so that i can use it. It was not only completely hilarious, but it was sooo true. It talked about how , " we believe in Meetings..... " But as i told you earlier, i constantly feel the presence of Mark, I know he is here, and any time i am feeling in distress i here a voice saying i'm here, and i'm not leaving you. its hard to explain in words, but it is comforting to know i'm never alone. one of the elder's in my district brought , "Mormon Doctrine," by Bruce R. Mckoncey( i forgot how to spell his last name. ) but oh my gosh! i WANT IT. if you are gonna send me anything for my birthday or for christmas, That is my Major request. I have heard though, that it is very difficult to find copies.  but, the material in in, is great. I love you so much dad, and appreciate the family updates, i would have loved to see ella give her scripture. Hope everything is going well. Talk to you next week, 

- Elder Wilson

Week 2

Alrighty everyone,

So this week has gone by so fast. The longer we are here the quicker time flies. We have mainly studying day in and day out. Most of our spanish is terrible with hilarious accents. Our teacher, Hermano Cruz, laughs every once in a while because of how bad we pronounce things some things, but i will say that we have all come pretty far since we started. we all can pray, bear our testimonies, and pathetically attempt to teach lessons in Spanish. besides that, its difficult. But we havent given up yet:) we are trying to talk to more of the Lations but its very difficult to understand them. they all speak way to fast and usually in slang. On sunday night we had an amazing devotional by one of the people that work here. I could not stop listening. it was honestly one of the greatest talks ive ever heard. I also had to give my first talk in Spanish on Sunday. Of my, was that nerve wracking. It was supposed to be completely in spanish, but i forgot which verse i wanted to read, and i couldnt find it in the spanish scriptures fast enough, so i ended up having to say it from memory, but in english:/ oh well, besides that i did okay. not a very long talk though. HAHA! So the guy that we were teaching lessons to is now our night instructor. His name is Hermano Zumaya. He is really cool. I like him a lot! Hermano Cruz and Him have promised to give us a tour around the city if we come back after our missions. lol. all the elders have that as there current goal. Besides all of that, there isnt much new going on with us. Today we had the opportunity to go to the Mexico temple, but only to the visitor center. the temple is so amazing, we all wished we could have gone in, but its under constructional work right now. something was wrong with the ground it was built on. i think it is sinking or something. But the visitor center was awesome. Plus it was nice to get outside of the gates for a while. the city is 1 of a kind. its gorgeous and completely packed. the best way i can describe it is, china town in San Francisco, on Crack. (but replace all the oriental merchandise with hispanic merchandise, lol:) Well thats about it for this week! we are just trying to learn as fast as we can. 

Love you all, and thanx for all the emails. 

 

 

Week One

We missed out on the first week email for technical reasons.  Here is the first email he sent Rob. :)

Hey Dad,

 I appreciate the letter you gave me. It made me smile during my 7 hour lay over. 

Mexico is so cool. I enjoy it and the landscape so much! Dont worry about the rules, we wake up at 6AM every morning, 30 mins early so that we all can get showered and stuff. My companion is really cool. Spanish is going by okay. Weve practiced teaching an investigator 3 times now. i do most of the talking because it has to be completely in spanish and my companion cant speak unless the words are right in front of him. i guess high school paid off after all.

weve had a total of three devotionals since ive been here, and the spirit is incredible. i am learning a lot. i cant help but get the feeling that Uncle Mark is here with me. during one of the devotionals, i felt as if i turned around, i would see his face. i know there is a reason, just dont know what that reason is yet. 

I love you, and know that i am doing the Lord´s work honestly. I just pray that my spanish improves quickly. 

Love your son, 

- Elder Wilson