Wednesday, January 21, 2015

(No Subject)

Another Baptism (in a river)
(but this time we had our ZL do it)

This week we baptized a 10 year old girl named Veronica. For those of you that have been keeping up with my weekly series of masterpiece epistles, this is the second young woman named Veronica I've baptized. Go figure! This time Veronica decided that she wanted our ZL to actually do the baptism, which was already kind of a plan of ours anyway because he's never baptized in a river. That really isn't the point, but it worked out anyway and was a cool experience for him and for Veronica. She's really cool, is in a part member family, and has friends in the church, so she has a support system with the members that will help her stay active. We did this baptism in a beautiful jungle area that had a really cool waterfall. I'll try to send pictures of that as well. 

Other than that, we did not have a sacrament meeting in Guazu Kua this week due to rain. Rain rain rain rain rain. We went there wednesday in the rain with some youth (which was super fun) but all of my paper stuff that wasn't laminated (planner, missionary manual) got destroyed. 

Really I can barely remember this week. I hit 6 months in the mission, and time is flying by. This week was filled with work stuff, I don't know.

Love, 

Elder Wilson

P.S. Chipa is actually super good I was so wrong




Monday, January 12, 2015

One Who Cries Out in the Wilderness‏

BAPTISM
of Simeon Jara Cantero 
(74 Years Old; Yes, I know. Another old guy)
IN A RIVER

So this week was just about the coolest ever.

On Wednesday I woke up at 3 and  walked the full 34 Km to Guazu Kua with Elder Greene (the other American living with us) for the baptism of Hermano Jara. It was worth it in every way imaginable. I got to baptize Hno Jara in a river! The spirit was extremely strong there and it was an experience I'll never forget. We also got some suuuuuper cool photos. I felt like John the Baptist. Super sweet.
After that, the week was pretty par for the course, lots of contacting, working, teaching, and a trip to Asunción for a Zone Conference. I did have to wake up at 3 AM two nights in a row, but it was super awesome so I didn't even really care.
We also had a Primary activity on Saturday that was really really fun because I love kids and they'r'e always super fun to be around. There was a bouncy house, they painted faces, and ate hot dogs. It was pretty cool.

On Sunday, I participated in the sacrament meeting in Guazu Kua as well. It was my first time blessing the Sacrament in Spanish, which went really well. We held it in the small wooden home of a family in the area. This week really I felt like I was back in the 1800s with the early saints. The spirit was with all of us during the meeting and sang with the spirit and talked with the spirit and ah man it was amazing. Everyone told me that it was always so strong there in the meetings but really I can tell you guys now that that's true. They asked me to share my testimony and during it I choked up a bit. Crazy. After that I used the Instant Snow I got in my Christmas package to show the kids what snow was like. They flipped out and had tons of fun with it. None of them had ever seen snow before. They kept laughing and shouting "ah man it's like in Frozen!" It was really touching. There were about 18 people in attendance.

Also fun fact about my area: There is a leper colony in my area! Don't worry- 1, we aren't allowed go there, 2- Leprosy isn't even contagious. The only reason that everyone thinks it is is because under Mosaic law Leprosy was considered unclean, so they put them in colonies. I really want to go there though... shame. I've heard it's gross, but hey, I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ, ya know? He worked with those guys like, 50% of the time! 

I'll make sure to send you guys some pictures too. Cool week.

Love,

Elder Wilson


 leading Hno Jara into the waters of what looks like Willy Wonka's chocolate river, but what is, in fact, river water (not populated with alligators or fat German kids named Augustus.)


 The sacrament table.


The tiny house on the prairie where we have sacrament meeting in Guazu Kua.


 The Guazu Kua Group.


 Santa Wilson giving the children a Snow day in Paraguay.


One of the kids with snow in his hair for the first time in his life (he lives hours from basically any civilization.)

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Jungle‏

People of Earth,

So my new area is even more beautiful and more of a jungle than I had thought last week. I'm going to try and include pictures if I can, because really this place is awesome. I'm glad I picked the most obvious title for my email as well. 
I'm having an awesome time in this area. Paraguarì 1.1 is about ten times larger than Coronel Oviedo 1.3, and requires a lot of walking. We have to get up at 3 am every Sunday to walk/hitchhike out to a group the missionaries recently opened in Wazu Kua. Church starts at 8:00 am. 

Speaking of Hitchhiking- We do it a lot. The nice thing is that 99.9% of the time, the people that pick us up are super nice and accepting and generally great people. The only problem is the 00.1% of the time. I don't want to freak anyone out, but next time you agree to get into someone's car, try to make sure they DON'T have a budweiser in their hands. You learn a lot on your mission. After a while of Señor Borracho telling us that hell doesn't exist while drunk driving, I forced him to stop the car and let us out. It was an interesting experience. 

Really it's a fun place. It's actually really safe (despite what I said in the last paragraph) and everyone is incredibly chill. My new comp and I are getting along really well along with the guys who live with us, and there are some great upsides to this area (like living above the place where we email). Paraguarì wooohooo!!!

Love,

Elder Wilson