Prophets and Apostles‏ (April 6,2015)

Well General Conference was awesome.

I hope we can all agree on that one. Although it was a bit different, it was an amazing, spiritually uplifting experience. We also had about 4 investigators come to the Sunday Morning session, which was quite nice. 

Holland always kills it. There were so many talks that just would not have been the same had I watched them in Spanish. I got to watch them in english and it really improves the experience. Although President Packer is a little hard to understand sometimes. Great talk, though ;). All the other Elders that were watching it in English with me were kind of strange and didn't have plans to even think about girls after their missions, so they all got cane dropped on them about 1,000 times about returned missionaries who don't want to get married. It was super funny. 

One of our main investigators, Noemi, who was supposed to get baptized Saturday, discovered some pamphlets of the biggest apostasy garbage ever made: "Tabernacle of William Brannon". Honestly we couldn't believe  it when she told us that she "just remembered that she followed Brother Brannon and not Joseph Smith". "It's SO FAKE HOLY COW how can she not see this?" We thought. We proceeded to hit her hard with some Book of Mormon stuff, and told her that if she read the Book of Mormon, and would come to conference, she would know Thomas S. Monson was a prophet, and that the Church was true. She didn't come to conference, so we went back and had a crazy awesome lesson where we dropped cane using all of the conference talks (this happened last night. We taught with power and authority while talking about: The difference between dancing and hearing the music, Jesus saving us from falling off the cliff, and many, many, many of the conference subjects.

 She currently has a baptismal date in two weeks.

Honestly and frankly, we have a prophet here on Earth, and I'm extremely thankful for that. I also love every single one of the Apostles and General Authorities who spoke in the conference. I feel so blessed to live in a time where we have the power of God flow into his servants, and to all of God's children all over the world.

Love,

Elder Wilson

       The Elders and Sisters watching General Conference in English. The american sister is in her first week,          so her companion from Panama had to watch all of conference in English. 

                                                             Paraguarí at sunset

                                  Also some makeshift pasta salad because I had some italian dressing 

                                  They don't have a ton of ingredients but it was still awesome.

Easterweek 2015‏ (March 30,2015)

My beloved brothers and sisters, 

The Apostle Paul wrote... (haha just kidding)

This week is Conference/Easter Preparation week over here in Paraguarí!

I'm super excited. Conference is a pretty big deal, along with pretty much the most important time of year, which is Easter. Before my mission Easter was just a day to eat rabbit shaped reese's candy and stuff, but now, since I've been here, every time I think of Easter I really am just... filled with appreciation for the Savior. I still love those rabbit shaped reese's, but the true purpose of Easter is really making it's mark in my life. By the way, those new Jesus videos are super super cool. The new actor is like 200% better, but aside from that it just shows everything I love about the Saviors teachings. I've read ]Jesus the Christ twice already and still my tiny little human mind can't fully comprehend the atoning sacrifice of our Lord. 

Conference, of course, is another awesome addition to the week, with the chance to listen to The Prophet, The Apostles, and other general authorities speak. How cool is that? My one request would be to

 PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO GENERAL CONFERENCE

THEY ARE LITERALLY PROPHETS OF GOD SPEAKING TO YOU SO PLEASE I BEG OF YOU TO PAY ATTENTION.

I never understood this before my mission. Conference was just an awesome time to eat food and sort of rest instead of having to get up to go to church. Don't get caught not knowing what they said the next sunday because people always ask and I was always like "oh ya know stuff about faith and prophets and stuff" and just don't be like Conner was. Be like Elder Wilson is. Taking notes and everything I'm so proud of that boy.

Also I did end up eating the crocodile. In the form of Crocodile Empanadas. It was actually really really good. Definitely would recommend it. I also did a contact a few days ago standing in a hill of fire ants! They were all over me and I started freaking out and running around and stuff. It was okay, the guy we contacted was a 10 year old less active and he's super cool so whatever. 

Oh, and I'm still with Elder Liddell.

Well, Pay attention to General Conference and please think about our Savior more than chocolate.  Or you will get fat I promise.

Love,

Elder Wilson

Crocodile empanadas

 A picture a 3 year old drew of my companion and I. We just walked into a random primary room and saw what they had drawn.

The missionaries in Paraguari

Crocodile Dundee‏ (March 23, 2015)

Another week

So to start out, I'm going to talk about our magical Sunday experience from yesterday. So yesterday was the start of fall in Paraguay, which means cooler weather, less daylight, and of course, setting your clocks back an hour. We got a call from our District leader, who got a call from our Zone leader, telling us to put our clocks forward an hour. Of course, being the sheep we are, we decided to do that, confiding in our leaders. What happened? We went out looking for investigators at 5:00 in the morning waking people up to go to church. "WAKE UP!" "AH COME ON MAN WHY ARE YOU GOING BACK TO SLEEP DON'T YOU KNOW THAT IT'S A COMMANDMENT TO GO TO CHURCH?" So then I had the impression to call my district leader. "Hey Elder ¿que hora es?"  and he responded "5:45". so we went home and decided to wait to go out and pass for everybody again. We ended up getting a few people to church, which was nice. This transfer I have seen the attendance at the branch go from 51 to 91, so we're making some progress.

Today we're also invited to a family home evening with some inactives to eat Crocodile. It's gonna be super sweet. I actually have grown to love eating the weird stuff here because it actually has some taste to it. Crocodile should be cool. I hope I get to eat it with a big bowie knife."Now that's a knife"

This week is the week of transfers, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm staying here with Elder Liddell. He's got 2 transfers left and unless he trains someone else I'm probably staying here. We'll see. Paraguarì is a sweet area. Really is the coolest.

Well, we're having a good time as always and working our butts off. I'm really feeling a good change going on in me as a missionary. It's like a cool superpower or something. A real one, not just money like Batman and Iron Man, or something really loud like Green Lantern's ring of power, but more of a slight one like Wolverine's healing. As you can see it isn't exactly a change of personality but more of a... I don't even know. It's cool. I'm having a lot of fun and I feel a little more mature about a lot of stuff. It might not seem like it based on the tongue-in-cheek tone of a lot of my emails, but really it's pretty cool to see.

I actually just think it's a bit of humility, is all.

Elder Wilson

My comp and I. Like Rush he doesn't really smile in photos, but he's cool. 

A Crocodile skin.

Conozca Los Mormones‏ (March 16, 2015)

So this week we had a Zone Conference in Asunciòn, which was pretty awesome.

We watched Meet the Mormons, which was really cool to finally see something that resembles a movie. Everybody in the conference started crying when they saw their "Utah Mountains" and their "Salt Lake Airport" at the end of the movie. Babies. I didn't cry when the movie started in ATLANTA AAAH YEAH that was pretty sweet though. That was cool. But anyway the movie was a good experience and it was cool to be the first people in Paraguay to see it. 

The conference was really spiritual and was generally super great. President Agazzani is leaving soon so I think he wants to do it with a bang.

This week we went to some cool parts of our area and found some new people. We got guided to some houses completely by the spirit, and taught some cool lessons. We've been using the Book of Mormon a lot more, which is something that I've really been loving during my mission. My testimony of The Book of Mormon has grown immensly while I've been here, and to me now it just seems ridiculous that anyone could not love it. 

People that don't have a testimony of The Book of Mormon either didn't read it or didn't understand it. Or both.

I've been growing a lot this transfer, and I've been working on developing myself as a missionary and a disciple and I must say I'm feeling the spirit a ton. It's a great experience.

Really, that's about it for right now. The weeks go by a little too fast sometimes.

Love,

Elder Wilson

"cure for diabetes here" 

Wow the Paraguayans finally found the cure for diabetes.

 Just a random picture I took with my companion when we were hangin' out.

Josè Smith‏ (March 9,2015)

Queridos Hermanos y Hermanas,

This weeeek we spent some time exploring our area, which is, in fact, (according to what my zone leaders and everyone says) the largest area in the mission. So we've been exploring it a bit, and avoiding soto because nobody is really progressing there, and we figured that El Señor probably wants us to find some new people. We took our travels this week to a place called Caballero. It's further than Guazu Kua, but less "fields and swamps" and more "people with a car/way to get to church". It's a nice little town with a lot of pueblitos. Well, that's about all I can say about Caballero.

We also found some seriously cool investigators. One is named Jonas (12 years old), and my companion and we had to lift him out of his bed into his wheelchair, put his shoes on for him, and I rolled him all the way to church from his house. It was really rewarding to see him and his sister in church. After that we watched the movie Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration with them, and I guess you could say it turned out well. His sister (18 years old) cried and then said a prayer that was really cool and honest. She started reading the Book of Mormon before we ever even talked to her. We left it with Jonas and she saw it later and just started reading. Very cool. I love testifying of the restoration. I feel super cool whenever I do. It's totally sweet.

I also had the wondeful opportunity to drop cane super hard with the ward this week in my latest talk. I've given a talk like every week since I've been with Elder Liddell. Don't know why, but it's always a great opportunity to lay down the law on the apostate version of the church that exists in Paraguay. Honestly. Drunk guys blessing the sacrament? Not gonna fly in my father's house, know what I mean?That was back in Coronel Oviedo, but still here in Paraguarì there are some nasty problems that plague the church. It's always nice to remember that the Church is perfect, but the people in the church are not perfect.  

I also went to a birthday party for a girl in the ward who turned 18 and the next day got set apart as the primary president. She's in charge of like 90% of the inactive members here because missionaries just baptized children for like 10 years here.

I'm doing great, really. Honestly right now I have no complaints. I'm happy, I'm safe, we're doing our work and being obedient, and I just feel.... I don't know... happy. Like a missionary should be. 

No se precupen, mis hermanos y hermanas, todo esta bien conmigo. 

Love,

Elder Wilson

The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins‏ (March 2, 2015)

(The title does not have to do with the missionary portion of the letter)

This week things calmed down a bit in Soto. By "calmed down" I really mean "shut down" because honestly it's a ghost town now that school started here. 

One fun thing I got to do this week in Soto is go to the bathroom in someone's shack just to realize that THE TOILET WAS BROKEN. I had to walk to the local well to fetch water, and come back to get that baby to flush. Honestly I'm extremely grateful for the things we have in the states, like water.

This week my companion and I have been finding a lot of awesome investigators and working really hard with the ones we have. The work is going a little slower than we would like but we're doing the best I can and seeing great results. We had a lesson with the headmaster or whatever of all the Freemasons in Paraguay as well. It was really interesting, and since I've learned a little more about the world's least cultish cult during my mission, it was cool to see and hear some weird stuff from the guy. He was super accepting and promised to read the Book of Mormon, which I'm sure he won't forget about, seeing as he lives right next to the Paraguay Temple.

I also went on splits with one of my ZL's Elder Allton. He's a really cool guy and I learned a lot. I always try to learn whenever I'm with my leaders here in the mission. This isn't my two years to sit around and stay the same, now is it? I'm having a great time though, and learned a ton about the mission and I really am constantly learning and improving. It's really cool to see and feel. I'm still me, I just feel a little better all the time. It's a nice feeling. 

But like I said, I'm still me. Here's some evidence:

Now it's time to dedicate a moment of quiet reflection to 

Leonard Nemoy, who passed away this last friday. Surely one of the great actors of our time. Or so he always probably thought.

Thank you for your quiet reflection.

Elder Wilson

Maybe he'll come back like in Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock

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.