Hola Famila!

¿Que tal? Entonces, mi primero semana aqui fue excellente y dificil. No puedo entender nada, pero yo puedo hablar sobre el evangelio, entonces, yo digo mi testimonio muchos y yo enseño acerca el evangelio de jesucristo.

So i am definitely in a 2nd world country. The people here all have running water, refrigerators, and beds, but the overall area is very poor.  The people are extremely nice and I hear them yell Greengo all the time. They love white people! So I am serving in a trio with two Natives, Elder Pastenes de Chili, y Elder Huamani de Peru. We are serving in the city of Independencia. Its in the hills so TONS of stairs. My legs have been sore, but that's a good thing. I put pictures up so go and take a look! My companions have been very nice and have been helping me with my Spanish and preaching the gospel. I get to hear them talk to each other so my understanding should increase faster because of that.

So, in the last 6 days. We've met 36 people, and had 27 lessons, 10 Baptismal invitations, and 5 confirmed dates for baptism. The people here are ready to receive the gospel. Its amazing how well they recognize the spirit when we teach. Yesterday we needed a bigger room we had so many investigators and menos activos in the room!  Almost 25 people! Its crazy! We've been teaching 3 familias that are very close to their baptism dates and I think they're ready! Its so exciting. Since I've been here we've had 3 people be baptized into the ward. Fantastico! So apparently the norm during a mission here is about 30 baptisms. Yeah, wow!

So the culture here is fantastic! Lots of music, kind words, and handshakes. But, there's a lot of dog poop on the ground and having baggy pants around the calves of my legs doesn't help. SO, at Christmas send me some pants that are NOT baggy around the calves. That would be FANTASTIC!  So I forgot to take pictures of our casa, but its really nice! Lots of room and the bed is comfy, just no hot water, so showers are not enjoyable. Saturday night there was a wedding ceremony and party. It started at about 9:00pm and didn't end till 7:00am the next morning. They blasted music all night with a lot of bass. I did not sleep well.

SO, the field is wonderful. I just need to get used to the culture and the daily life of the field. So hopefully by the end of Octubre I will be great! I'm excited to serve, but I have definitely been humbled by the people. They do our laundry for us and feed us huge lunches and they have nothing, but are so willing to give. It's extremely humbling and fills my heart with joy. So I challenge you to look for ways to give and help others. Make a meal or go out of your way to help someone. Because if people who live with cement floors and metal roofs, with barely anything to ease their lives can do it, I know you can too! :) Oh and I mean HUGE lunches- its hard to finish them sometimes. I ate chicken stomach this week. It doesn't taste like Chicken. :)

I miss and love you all,
-Elder Wilson

first letter from Peru!

Attached is a scanned letter from Elder Wilson after he arrived at the mission home in Lima, Peru. Also attached are 2 pictures. One with his mission president and wife, President and Hermana Erickson and one with the new missionaries he arrived with.

Elder Wilson and Hermana Dearden at Mexico CCM

This picture of Elder Wilson with his friend Hermana Dearden was taken right before he left for Peru. It is pretty unique that two friends from Alabama, who went to high school together and also live 5 doors apart, would get to be together in Mexico!

Week 6- Elder Wilson's last letter from the Mexico CCM!

Hola Madre! Are you surprised to hear from me today? Since I leave for Peru Monday, I wont get my usual P-day(preparation day) so I am sending this today. Thanks for the info! Ill try my best to get it to 50lbs each!  I bought some nicer Spanish scriptures and an amazing case for them.  I'm so excited to get to Peru. I've been talking to a lot of the natives here, some are from Peru, and they have only said it's awesome! I can't wait. I put a few more pictures up, they're of 2 of my teachers. Ill have more maybe when I arrive in Peru. This last week has been very amazing and kinda sad. It will be hard to leave my district that I have been with for 6 weeks.

 We gave our investigators one last lesson this week. My companion and I taught a REAL investigator on Wednesday. The lesson went extremely well. I know the spirit was using me to tell her what she needed to hear. It was excellent, and she said our Spanish was great! She will be attending church with one of our Teachers this Sunday. So awesome! I hope only good things follow.

Okay so Hermana Dearden is here! She's doing great! She's been teaching her First investigator and she did really well today! At dinner she told me all about it. She's gonna do wonderful. Her companion seems nice, so that's great! We'll take a picture before I leave this great place! I've been trying to help the new district in our zone as much as possible. Which is always fun.  I asked my teacher for some pass along cards and some Libro de Mormons so I hope to teach a lesson on the plane! Through small and simple things, great things are brought to pass! I hope you guys have a wonderful Sunday! Some words of advice. The Gospel is for Everyone. Give referals to the missionaries! The Prophet has said that now is the time for members and missionaries to work together! Anyone you can think of, give the missionaries a referal! You never know what the Lord has done to prepare people to hear the Gospel! One of my goals is to have a Baptism within 2 months of being in the Mission! So get yourselves ready for that awesome moment!

So our new district has about 6 Missionaries going to the Birmingham, Alabama mission. I'm trying to help them with how the culture is and how everything will be. Maybe you'll meet them! Oh a few of my friends from BYUI showed up this last Wednesday which is great! Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I hope everything is still stable in the world. I have no idea at the moment. Other than I've heard a few things about the ISIS. We should teach them the gospel. Oh, and Ebola is getting worse???

I've been reading in Matthew and I'll finish tonight in my scripture study before bed. The life of Christ is fantastic. His parables are great, and the miracles he performed are amazing. I hope I get to experience something like this during my mission. I thought it might be worth mentioning that in these 6 weeks I have learned more Spanish than a lot of people do in 4 classes of High School. Crazy right? Nope it's the spirit. Ha! Anyway I hope everything is good!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Wilson

Week 5

Hola Familia!

Este es mi ultimo semana aqui en El CMM. No puedo entender, como el tiempo es no mas. Mi español es bueno en el evangelio, pero no en normal conversation. Oh well, that's all the Spanish you're gonna get for a while.

The Temple was fantastic. I got a sweet backpack there! I put lots of pictures on dropbox from Dia de Independencia de Mexico and the Temple. The Spirit was definitely at the temple. The Hermanas there were native and only spoke in Spanish, I could understand about 60% of what they are saying. So there's that. The temple is absolutely beautiful. I wish I could of had the opportunity to go inside, but since it is closed for renovations, we couldn't.

 So this past week I've had tons of Wonderful experiences in the gospel. First of all, When I got here I began reading the Book of Mormon and made a goal that I would finish before I left the CCM. Well I finished this morning! I know with out a shadow of a doubt that this book is Un otro testamento de Jesu Cristo. I'm gonna start reading The New Testament. I can't wait to begin studying the life of the Savior. It will be fantastic. Me and my companion made goals last week to commit all our investigators to baptism and to keep our less active member going to church. We accomplished all our goals. All our investigators have a baptismal date, and our less active is going to Church. It's absolutely fantastic. Sunday was wonderful. My heart could barely hold all the feelings in. Fantastic day..... overall it was a fantastic week, and this week is going to be great too.

 So I'm ready to get out of here, go to Peru and try my best to teach the gospel! Its gonna be great! Time is really going by fast for me. I can't believe it has been 5 weeks. It feels like I just got here and I'm already more than a month done with my mission. General Conference is coming up and I'm looking forward to that. It will be amazing to hear from the prophets who give us so much knowledge and wisdom coming from the Man himself, our Heavenly Father. My testimony of this church has grown so much since being here. 

When I got here I just decided to have Faith. I decided that I would be obedient to all the rules and I would be blessed for it. And I have. My questions have been answered and I've gained a testimony of how The Book of Mormon can bless anyone who reads it.. and everyone should.

So for the other stuff. I haven't received my flight information yet, however, they have posted our leaving time. I leave next Monday, at 11:00 from the CCM which means my flight is probably at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I will get my flight itinerary after Dinner today and I'll send a quick email either tonight or tomorrow with that info because I'm not getting another P-day before I leave. It sounds like everyone is having a fantastic time at home! I saw the picture of Clara! That is too awesome! Tell her that I hope the Tooth Fairy gave her something! I'm excited to see Heather tomorrow! I'm going to be helping all the new missionaries arrive so i'll definitely see her when she gets here! I can't wait! Tell her to not worry. 

It is Mexican Independence Day! It is CRAZY! Holy Cow! All night, it literally sounded like a War zone. Guns all night. People just take rifles, shotguns, and pistols and shoot them in the air over and over and over. Tons of loud music and fireworks too. It was crazy, but super awesome. The CCM had a Mormon Mexican dance group come and put a show on for us. It was fantastic! So awesome. The culture here is amazing. I have lots of pictures and videos from it on Drop Box! I'm still not sick, the food hasn't done anything to me so everything's good!

Thanks for all the Advice and Love, it means a lot! Put more picture on Dropbox!!!!!! Pictures are always better than words.

I love and miss you guys,

-Elder Wilson.

Week 4!

Hello Family and Friends,

So this past week has been quite a good one! I didn't go to the temple today, however, I will next week for sure. I have received the package, some dear elder letters, and Clara's letter! Tell her I said thank you! So during the Past week we gained a new investigator, his name is Alejandro. He is a menos activo, or less active member, who has problems with the Word of Wisdom, but he wants to change.  My companion and I have really done good work with teaching our investigators. One is committed to baptism and our less active is going to try to obey the Word of Wisdom, pray, read the scriptures, and attend Church on Sunday. I'm able to speak the language pretty well now, so I'm able to better express the feelings I want them to feel during our lessons.  I talked in Spanish for 5 minutes straight this last lesson because our investigator didn't believe that God loved him and I bore testimony in Spanish that he did. After that I asked him to be baptized and he said yes.  Last Wednesday we have something called TRC. This is where we teach REAL investigators and not "fake"(our teachers pretending) ones.(However the fake ones do a very good job at acting like real investigators) So this last TRC I taught a guy who  is 24 years old and his brother just joined the church and he wants to learn more about it. We taught him the first lesson and it went pretty well. I understood about 60-70% of what he said.  He said that he definitely wants to know more about families and the Book of Mormon. I will probably never meet him again but it was an AMAZING experience! It made me want to get to Peru so badly!On Sunday I bore my testimony in Spanish for about 3-4 min. My branch president complemented me on my Spanish and testimony. So hey, maybe I actually am decent at speaking in the language. Overall this week has been great, and I can't wait to get to Peru!

Now for all the other stuff I need to tell you. I need a few more things for you to send with Heather! I need shoe laces! Brown and black! My shoe laces on my Brown dress shoes broke, and my tennis shoes shoelaces are falling apart so send a bunch! If it's possible another pair of shoes, (My Vans) would be great. Oh a nice pen would be good too. Other than that everything's good. I'm not sick, I'm loosing weight not gaining. I weighed 195 when I got here and I weigh around 184 or 185 now. It sounds like everything was okay this past week in Alabama. I forgot my camera cable so pictures will be up later today, or next week! Give referrals to the sisters. The Gospel is for everyone and I know they want to teach someone that will listen. Tell everyone that I miss them and that I hope everything is going well! Only two more weeks and then Peru Comes. Its been a month tomorrow. I can't believe it. Its really flown by. I'm always busy so that's probably why. I miss and love you all. 

-Elder Wilson

Week 3

Hola Familia! 

So the past week has been filled with tons of exciting and interesting things. I've been writing them in my Journal then writing them on here so I don't forget anything.  So I just made it to Alma in the Book of Mormon. My testimony is increasing about how this book can help people and the problems in their life. I posted a few pictures from today on the drop box check them out! Me and my companion have been teaching four people. They all have different needs and backgrounds so its been a great learning experience to figure out how to teach each one of them specifically. A really cool thing that happened this past week was that I had another experience where I just started speaking Spanish and had no idea how I was doing it. We were teaching one of our investigators when we got onto the subject of what the Gospel of Christ was. I started to explain it and just kept going and going. Faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the holy ghost, and enduring until the end. I explained exactly what they were and how it applied to the investigators life in SPANISH. It was an amazing experience. On Sunday I had the chance to sing with two other people in my district in Spanish during sacrament meeting. Everyone said we did well and that they felt the spirit. We sang, "How great thou Art" in Spanish. Yesterday was a good day, we taught our investigator about the restoration of the Gospel. It was awesome. That's about it for the spiritual stuff. I'm learning a lot and it's great!

 -So on the daily living side, the power keeps going out at night here. It's pretty weird. The food has been getting better and better. I've met a lot of new people that came this past Wednesday. One is from Florida so that's cool. We're learning the Mexican Nation Anthem for Mexican Independence day! My teachers said that it's going to be one CRAZY night.  Fireworks all night, parties, live music, and tons more. It should be a pretty interesting night! I've been playing a lot of cage soccer with the Natives from Central and South America. They're really good. I've met a bunch of people from Lima, Peru! I've asked them what it's like and they say that I'm going to love it and that everyone loves white boys! haha! I get to go to the Temple next Tuesday, so my Email will come much later, but will have TONS of pictures for you to look at.  I'm half way done with my training here and I've learned so much! I can't believe I am saying this, but I hope my trainer is a native. It will help me SO much.

Okay so Mom, there is a really cool website called www.missionarypackagemx.com You can send me all sorts of goodies and food straight to the CCM through that website, and even include a letter! What they do is, they get your order through the website then go to costco and buy all the stuff. It gets here that day or the Next! My companion has gotten two! Its really cool. If they have something like that in Peru ill let you know! I will share everything you send, just don't send donuts please! Everything else is good! I've lost like 5 pounds of fat and id like to not gain it back!

Tell Gretchen that I got her letters, and that I was happy to hear from her! Tell her that Emails work the best, but I love letters too and give her that website address too.

I think that's it. Check out the pictures there should be one with Natives from Peru, Honduras, Paraguay, and Mexico!
I miss you all and Love all of you!

Love, Elder Wilson