Big Trouble in Little Soto‏

A drunk guy tried to throw his knife at me!

So this week the opposition is growing like crazy in a little pueblito named Soto!

(My convert Veronica lives there). We've been working there like crazy and finding a bunch of new people, but as we all know, Satan doesn't like it when that happens. So after a generally calm normal Saturday working over there in Soto, we decided to do some contacting. We clapped on a door, and she invited us in, telling us she had been waiting soooo long for us to finally clap at her door. "Wow, she might be solid gold!" we said. "Let's go in there!" We said. So then we proceeded to get lectured by who turns out is the wife of the local catholic preacher. Not fun. She explained to us how our members are just using us and how this is "my neighborhood" and "I don't like it when other religions come into my town to take over my family and my friends!" so we gently explained to her a few things about the church and the members and got out of there, as she explained to us how they were teaching in their chapel to reject the mormon missionaries. 

We then decided it was probably time to leave Soto for the day on the way out, and a drunk guy comes stumblin' out of his house with a big ol' Machete screaming (to the effect of) "HEY MORMONS WANT SUMMA THIS?" and luckily dropped it next to his foot on accident. By the time he had it back into throwing position we were gone. It was really pretty cool, and definitely made the day a little more exciting. Don't worry, I'm being careful.

We also have yet another dog who follows us. This time it's not a pitbull, and it's a lot smaller. Her name is Aleja, and she sleeps outside our house, sits under our chairs during lessons, and generally wants to be around us 100% of the time. It's literally waiting outside the place where I'm writing this email right now. I'll try to send some picures. 

Paraguay continues to be a fun and exciting place to teach, and my companion and I are working really hard and having a good time. We have an investigator who has attended church twice now, and can get baptized in like two weeks. We'll see where that goes. He's pretty cool.

Love,

Elder Wilson

Admittedly wanted to catch the machete like Kurt Russell at the end of "Big Trouble in Little China"

Our dog. It runs over to me all the time and likes me especially. I don't know why.

How's the weather up there? (‏ (2/16/15

So this week was the week of transfers. Goodbye Elder McDermott,

Hello Elder Liddell. Once again I'm shocked at just how many American companions I've had. Literally not one latino, which is basically unheard of. 

Anyways, you'll all be happy to find out that he's another tall guy! 6'4!

I think President Agazzani just thinks it's funny to see a huge giant walking around with a little short guy like me. I do get to make lots of tall jokes, which is always really fun.

I also had the chance to talk to Elder Arrington and Elder Henrie in the Terminal in Asunciòn during transfers, and I found out some cool stuff.

First of all, Pedro (my convert) now has the priesthood and has blessed the sacrament! SO PROUD, and is still active. My other convert Carlos went to EFY a few weeks ago and is also still active in the church. Made my day. Really it's awesome to see that everything is going well over there in Coronel Oviedo still, and things are doing okay in Paraguarì as well. A fun time for sure. Elder Arrington is super jealous that I'm here. Just look at all these awesome fruits of my labors. Absolutely not wasting my time here. Anyone that says a mission is a waste of time either never went on a mission or broke all of the rules all the time.

Also sorry but I forgot to take a photo withe Elder Liddell. You say his name like Chuck Liddell, but everybody here says it like "leetle" or "little" which they already called ME, which is confusing and only hurts my tender heart a little bit.

Really that's all I have to talk about this week. Summer is hot here, reading all of the standard works is an endurance race that's longer than I had thought, and I found a place that sells Snickers.

Love,

Elder Wilson

Short, but, has an awesome girlfriend. Happy late Valentine's Day, hon.

Also happy 17th Birthday to Ethan. You're so old, dude! One year left muahahaha

$3 Balsamic Vinagre (2/9/15)

Well that's the most emails I've gotten in a long time. Thanks for all the love and support. I guess I'll try to make the emails not send right more often XD. Also the computers we're using today are really slow. This email is probably going to be a bunch of miscellaneous stuff.

So this week is the week of transfers, but they don't happen until Wednesday, so we'll see where that goes when we get there, now won't we.

So this week in Paraguayan news... we had a good week of work. Yep! We worked hard, improved in just about every aspect, and had a good bit of fun. Really we're having a good time, and the ward loves us. Our Branch President is a really cool guy who got baptized 2 years ago and already does more than 200% of the other Paraguayans. His dream is to go to Utah with his family to see temple square. He's a professional photographer and has a lot of really fancy stuff. Really cool guy.Recently we received a notebook from one of the young women with over 150 references in it, including maps and whether or not the people have been through the temple. Man, are they willing to help us out.

Some of the other Elders that we live with also appreciate the finer things in life, as I do, and we try to search for the fanciest stuff they have here, to make Mondays a little more interesting. This week, Snickers, Peanut M&Ms, and bread with Balsamic vinagre. How fun is that? Today Elder Greene (one of the Americans) and I are going halvsies on some Haagen Das. Really the Paraguayan food is alright but sometimes you have to do something weird that none of the missionaries do. Really it's not that expensive to not have to suffer by eating noodles and oil. That stuff destroys your teeth.

I'm really anxious to find out what happens this next transfer, but we'll see! 

Elder Wilson

Dropping like flies (2/2/15)

So today I'm on splits with an Elder named Elder Horton (hears a who) because Elder McDermott is in Asunciòn at a leadership conference. Not a super interesting week, so I'm just going to blabber about odd specifics I'll never think about again after my mission. Probably. 

You know, at the beginning of my mission I thought that splits were a terrible idea. I've had pretty cool companions, and at times it seemed as though splits were just a time for everyone to come in and eat all of my food. But, as missionaries always do, I have grown past that first stage into the true awesomeness of splits. Really every time you have a companion you're with them to learn something, even if it's only for a day.

 I've really been trying to learn as much as I can because Elder McDermott and I recently hit the reset button on our investigators and are essentially dropping everyone to find new people. Now we've really hit a groove where we're teaching really well and I've been trying to help him out [in ensuring real conversion before baptism. I'm 100% certain it's why I'm here with him, and why I was with Elder Henrie, who is known as the "rebel of the mission" he constantly argues with some of the other missionaries about the obsession with numbers. Pretty funny to watch.

That's what you get when you're in the highest baptizing areas in one of the highest baptizing missions in the world. I've never really had issues with the leadership, because really I'm just here to help people get into heaven. McDermott has like a 3 for 19 active to inactive convert ratio. As of today, I'm 6 for 6. 

This week I also had some super fun bible bash sessions with some catholics. Let's just say we bashed pretty hard on the whole mother mary thing. It was hilarious and probably humiliating for the guy, but he was really mean so, maybe he learned something.

I'm probably staying where I am, though. We'll see.

Love,

Elder Wilson

I got this sick custom made scripture case made for my triple.

The guy and all the missionaries say this is the coolest one they've seen. All the others just have like a picture of jesus on the front and baptism stuff on the back. Mine has like Moroni with a backdrop of bricks with real aztec/mayan symbols for the book of mormon, the facsimile of abraham and the mission logo for the pearl of great price, and the first vision overlayed on some 1800s bricks. Pretty tight and super durable

100,000 guaranìes

me chillin' with thiago and mauri who are the converts of Elder Arrington. They come to church and are really cool. Thiago (who is throwing the gangsign) talks really fast and in a super high cartoony voice like ethan when he was little, and Mauri is super smart and really cool.

Hakù Tererèi (1/26/15)

This week was really, really hot. For the first time, we had to take several breaks in the shade just to not get heat stroke or something. Try walking 6 hours in 90 degree weather with what seems like a swimming 200% humidity. Actually it's pretty fun, and everybody always makes fun of my comp for having a bright red burnt sausage nose  because he doesn't use sunblock like I do. This week not much happened, so I'm going to explain some really weird random stuff.

First I'll talk about Goliath. Not the giant that David killed before he became an adulterer, but the pitbull that follows the missionaries (me) around every day! What a sweet guy. From anyone who's known me for longer than a few months, they'll know I'm not really a dog person. It might seem weird to find out that my companion and I hang out with a pitbull all the time, and it waits outside our house until we leave and follows us until we go home. It's a really calm dog, and protects us from other dogs which is cool. I'm just waiting for the day it snaps and eats my face off. Just kidding mom! Really it follows us maybe a few times a week and comes to Branch Night for the English classes and soccer. Totally a cool guy. When it follows us to lessons it always pees in people's houses. I don't really want to tell it to go away so we just sort of go along with it. 

By the way the subject of this email means "it's hot outside" in guaranì. Essentially the equivalent of Hace Calor in spanish, or RRRAAAAGHR in Wookie. Wow I'm a little crazy today. Please forgive me because honestly the sun is frying my brain. Probably. 

We're switching things up a lot, and I can already see the affects on the branches in Paraguay. It's a great place, and we're working hard all the time. Really, really fun.

Love,

Elder Wilson

Will try to send all of the pictures he can

this cool thing I bought for 70 mil guaranìes from an ex missionary in the branch. It's really cool and I'm totally bringing it home.

Goliath