Week 40 Ecuador

French Toast? :)

Old sewing machine

Mormons have horns;)

Moto-taxi's

The real concrete jungle (not New York)

Missionary work is like Dominoes; I spend a lot of time, effort, and careful planning to set up the perfect parade of spiritual experiences in hopes of a smile, testimony builder or general step toward our Savior. 

However, one twitch, bump or action out of place and the Spirit is cut-off. Understanding is incomplete. Results far less grand. I'm practicing my set-up so the Lord can, in one splendid motion, do something truly fascinating.
I know you all love my dumb analogies;)

6/29/15 (voice recording)

Happy 4th of July!!! Hi family, I hope you’ve had a delightsome morning. I’m sure you’re all headed off to the bowery to have some breakfast action, and maybe watch the Haun girls ride the 4 wheeler through the parade. I’m not sure, Garrett saddle up on the horse or something and go through, that’s pretty sweet. Um, then you’ll probably go over to Huntsville, Huntsville’s a pretty sweet parade. Doesn’t change up a whole lot, but that’s good for me, because I know everything that you’re going to see, and everything that’s going to go on there. Shoot, doesn’t mean that I won’t miss it though. Tell everyone in the ward, and everyone that I love ‘em and I miss ‘em. I’ll be celebrating soon enough. I don’t know what I’m going to do here. I’ll be working that day, and my district, the missionaries that I’m working with, they have a baptism that day, so we’ll probably go over there and support them. I actually put the baptismal date with that family. They’re pretty sweet. I’m not going to have my own baptism, it fell, they didn’t go to church, but hey, let’s look at the positive side of everything. If I can find some fireworks, I’ll probably shoot ‘em off, or a BBQ, or a something. I don’t know, my options are pretty limited here, but ya know, if worst comes to worst I’ll walk around with a smile on my face, and pride in my heart, and sing American songs to Ecuador. That’s how we do it here. 
This week I’m going to the temple Wednesday morning, so I’m super excited for that. I always love that experience. I’m going to go do more of our family endowments, if the other missionaries will help me out. I’m sure it will be awesome. 
Next week Papa Francisco from the Catholic church is coming to Ecuador, so that’s a huge deal. I question if we’re going to be successful in our efforts to teach anyone, because everyone thinks they’re Catholic here. 30,000 people are going to be entering the city of Quito where he’s going to be, to listen to him. All the rest of the people will be watching him on their TV’s. So, I don’t know. I’m sure the president will tell us what to do that day. We’ll probably just go out and work, hope for the best. 
Alright, I’ll leave you to enjoy your day. Don’t lie around pouting because I’m not there;) Maybe think of me on one firework of the night, but enjoy your finale all the same. No, I love those fireworks in Huntsville! Send me photos of the family. Do some leg wrestling contests or something that we would do if I was there. Garrett you can invite a girl over to lay on the blanket with you at the feet of mom and dad, next to Bryan and Darby and watch the fireworks. That would be pretty sweet. ha 

Anyways, Love you all. Have a wonderful day. God Bless America!

Week 39 Ecuador

Let`s start this off right, though I am a day behind, Happy Fathers Day DAD!! and all of the great ward members, coaches and men that have had an influence on me becoming who I am.

(John 8:28-29) ¨I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me.¨

...¨I do always those things that please Him.¨

This week I met a truly confused man who despised me because I am American. Huh? ..He was real mixed up with political jazz and threw it out on the church. I shared what I could and went on my way. Eye-opener. and testifier: (Matthew 15:14) - The blind will lead the blind and they`ll fall.

Better note: A member made a delicious lasagna this week for lunch, and invited her investigating cousin over. 26, 2 kids, 7 years living with her boyfriend, gorgeous... Bro, put a ring on it and keep her a while.

What`s new: spent my P.Day morning helping the sisters change houses with ALL of the furniture and their possessions. Whew, well their new house is nice!

Allergy season in Ecuador:/

I head this story once upon a time and it came to mind this past week, describing a few current feelings I wrote my version:

¨The Lord once came to a man and commanded him to push upon a boulder. The faithful man hastened to the work pushing with diligence against fatigue, thirst and heat; the man thought of levers and other strategies to accomplish his design but became discouraged due to the lack of progress.

A time passed and the Lord returned to this man, still pushing upon the rock. Exhausted and ashamed the man gave an account of his work, then apologized that despite all he was unable to move the rock that he had failed. The lord smiled at His servant and at His side thanked him for the work he`d done. He said my son, my friend, I never asked you to move the boulder - simply to push upon it; this you have done and I congradulate you for the strength, inteligence and character you`ve developed. Come, and rest a while with me.¨

Thank goodness His work is so much greater than pushing upon boulders. No effort wasted; Do his work and let it work in you.

Keep on pushing:)

Trying to be like Elder Tesch;)

Ward parties in Ecuador...starts at 7:00, currently 7:40, vacant, I'm out!

Week 38 Ecuador

What`s new my family, what`s new... We got a new investigator thanks to a referal from a future missionary (Franklin Astudillo who`s going to Chile) to teach his girlfriends family. That`s brave. It`s been good though and I`ve definately felt the spirit in the last lesson, though they`re a little hesitant to drop their religion, social ties and all... Ok, little by little.

Another problem is people aren`t too dependable. I was never too big on associating myself with things in which the success greatly rests on others. Truth is, people will let you down time and time again, but you can`t do it alone either. Keep trying, when they learn to see as you see, then you`ve done something bigger than yourself.

I`m fighting like crazy to fill up my 4th of July baptism slots. Hopes are slim, but there`s hope! Trouble is...people aren`t too fond of going to church. The teacher skipped to go DJ a party. Seriously? s`all good. I figured out being unprepared led to a super-good leason testifying to me that the spirit will speak through you. No irony that we happened to be teaching that week on the Holy Ghost. 

People in the ward (two to be exact) are making comments about my time here; yes, I`m hoping for a change soon too, ha. The new word for Gringo here is Yankee? Not sure where that came from...not sure I even know enough history to state if 

I`m a true Yankee or not!? But hey, we`ll roll with it.

(D&C 84:57) Came across this scripture passage this past week, and it has fueled my desire to remind all members of the necessity of living the principles of the gospel, and the blessings it will bring! Honestly, we cannot see the full blessings of the gospel nor will the church reach its full potential until we do so.

Quotes&Scriptures of the week:

We`re trying, we`re keeping our heads up. After all, ¨I`m not a saint, that is to say, unless you believe that a saint is a sinner who keeps trying.¨ Nelson Mandela.

Mosiah 2:22 all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments.

1Samuel 18:14 ¨David behaved himself wisely in all his ways and the Lord was with him.¨

¨Good decisions don`t make life easy, but they do make it easier.¨ Larry Gelwix

Love you Family. Keep making good decisions and the lord will be with you!

-Elder Wilson

Uh...I guess as far as pictures go, it turned out to be a Chinese, Deluxe fried-egg sandwich, Subway "selfie" type week!? There ya go!

Week 37 Ecuador

My leg from doing power cleans...came out a little bruised. ha, when did I become all soft?

Service with the bishop.

This photo is from a HUGE banana plantation in another sector I went to work in. We were teaching upstairs in their wooden loft of a tree-house, sweet! By the time I got a chance to snatch a photo it was pretty dark though.

They are one of the worlds largest banana producers! Cool.

We were hungry, and "ate like Americans" for a night. I'll have to wait to get back to America for a truly good burger. ha

6/8/15 That’s Life... (voice message)

Hi family, hope you had a great week. I’m enjoying kind of a rainy morning here, but it’s pretty cool. I like it. I’m waiting for some studies to start. I had another rather normal week, but with some changes and surprises. 

It started out when we went to a ladies house. She’s less active, and she needed help to build her house. She was changing houses again. It’s a house of bamboo, like a lot of people live in here. We helped her make her floor out of cement, and without a cement mixer. That was so hard. Shoveling cement for 2 hours was definitely a challenge, and I was in need of uncle Pete with his big cement pumper truck, but we got it done! :) It was me and my companion and two other guys that she just picked up to come help. I contacted them, we have a lesson with them tomorrow to go teach. Good deal. I was hoping that the whole ordeal would touch her heart, and that she would come to church, and she did! She came yesterday, for sacrament only, but hey, that’s a good start. Maybe we can get something going here? 

I went out and did visits with the bishop last night, Sunday night.  We visited some families that didn’t make it to church. We went to another less active family, and one of their kids was sick, so we gave him a blessing. The dad’s not a member, but the bishop told him straight up, your missing out bro, on your family, on everything. I was like, “Oh! Way to be direct bishop!” Hey, maybe it will spark something in him?

For this next story, I’ll just give you a quick run down on my physical level. I am completely healthy as far as I know, although I’m pushing 180#. I think I’m just bloated, full of rice honestly! Um, but you know, maybe my fast helped clear me out. It was a good fast. I set a new personal record for holding my breathe for 3 1/2 minutes. That was sweet! 

Ok, ok, here comes the more exciting part of my week. Um, my district grew today, and I now have a pair of sisters, and two pairs of elders in my district.  So six people...that’s fun, do some more splits with people, and get around. So, I went out with Elder Wallin, the zone leader, to his sector. I’ve been waiting for that, to get some new ideas, and get out of my sector for a minute. It was good. We were visiting, and a sister went out with us from the ward around 4 in the afternoon. His sector out back is pretty ghetto. There’s some back streets and everything. So we went to this house, and we were looking for a less active, and this guy passed by and told us the house was abandoned. He’s like, hey, I know where this guy lives, and he said the name and everything. The sister asked him to show us, and we started following him. He does a few turns, I wanted to contact the dude, and talk to him about the church, but he was walking so fast, and then he just stopped in the middle of the road in front of this bamboo house, and said that they live here. Sweet! 

I got there first, and I looked at the house. When I turned around, he pulled this huge butcher knife out of his pants. My comp was just walking up, and he held it to my comp, saying hey, give me everything! So, he took his watch, his ring, our phone, and like $15 from my comp. I just stood there in a daze while my mind was running a hundred miles an hour! Do I take this guy out? Do I run? Do I give him my stuff? I had my pin drive, my money, my camera, and all my stuff with me!  Anyway, as I was thinking, he pointed the knife at me! I grabbed his wrist, and I said, “Don’t touch me! I don’t have anything!”, and I shoved his hand, causing him to stumble backward. He was shocked, and pointed his knife at me saying, “Run!”  I looked at him, scuzzed him off, and then we just walked away. 

So, anyway, we totally got robbed! The sister called the police, and then we called President. The police came and told us to get in the car, and we drove around for 10 minutes fast and furious in these back streets. It was sweet! They know where this guy lives, and we went to his house. He was hiding inside. All these ladies were outside screaming at us and wouldn’t let anyone in. The police told us to get out of the car, but the ladies had butcher knives too! I didn’t want to get out of the car, but we did. Everyone was yelling, and the police were trying to calm them down. After they left, the police told us they would get our stuff back. So, all is well. I’m not too confident if any of those people around there will lovingly accept us into their homes now. There goes the mission work in that sector! :/ 

As far as the work...well, the funny thing about mission work is nothing really happens until somebody wants to listen. We did have a few people listening really good, progressing, but then they moved houses into another sector. We had to pass a reference over to the other elders, so they got a kind of gimme baptism. We have other people listening. We have a really cool mom. Her name is Cate. She and her two brothers all live together. There’s a few other families, we’re finding new people. We’re working, but we don’t have much support from the members. It’s hard to get people to go to church. I don’t know. That’s a hard principle for them here, just to go to church. Maybe it is for all people? I don’t know. 

 Oh, and last but not least, before I forget, if you guys can’t understand the video, or if it doesn’t send, I made bread with the bishop. He’s a baker. We wanted to go over and do service, and when we showed up he’s like, hey, just help me make this bread. What do you guys want to make? So, we learned how to make bread. He makes...they’re called rosquitas(?). They’re little circle things, and you eat them with hot chocolate, stuff like that. People love ‘em here. They’re kind of hard to make. He’s the only one that can do it. Everyone else is retarded at it. I was too at the beginning, but I got the hang of it, and everyone was like, wow, look, Elder Wilson can do it! It wasn’t really that hard, it was cool though, and I was having a good time. So we kind of did service, kind of learned something new. It was fun. I’m trying to be creative with the work, keep some new ideas going to keep the work interesting, keep it fun. I’m trying to take initiative, because if I don’t, then nothing gets done. You got to stay on top of it! Anyways, I’m going to close out with that for now. I hope I can talk with all you guys today while writing, but if not have a wonderful week.

Week 36 Ecuador

Making burritos again, this is turning out to be quite the popular thing amongst the members; teaching them how to cook this "rare specialty" haha

Waiting around for missionaries running late for zone meeting, and you thought it was just Ecuador that is unpunctual;)

Pure Ecuadorian Hot Chocolate:)

June 1, 2015 (voice recording)

Hello Family, I slacked off this past week and so I’m going to give you a quick 2 week highlight reel. I’m going to have to start with the coolest contact of my life that I made last week. His name is Angel, and he’s retired from military service at like 50 years old. He’s a native from an Ecuadorian tribe, and 100% Book of Mormon Lamanite. I’m serious, like the first I’ve ever met. He’s really educated, and he knows the bible, he’s read it, but still he retains his secular beliefs of one God who’s the son, and water and things. He recognizes Jesus as a good man who did all he did in love, but is not a God. He doesn’t recognize an atonement, or a afterlife really. Super cool guy, but I want another chance to talk to him; I haven’t found him.

Another great investigator, her name is Grey. We passed by for a lesson that we had planned, and she was playing Texas Hold ‘Em with three other ladies. So, I want to teach; Morga wants to leave, and them to play their game. So, I offered if I could win with my little knowledge of the game, they had to listen to us. Deal, God gave me a lucky hand! We had a good lesson, and Morga thinks I’m crazy, and she didn’t come to church anyway, but better hopes for next week. 

We made two trips to Guayaquil these past weeks. The first one was to have a lesson about Family History, and how we can include it in part of the work. I’ve been focusing on that a little bit. I also gave my testimony about family work. It was cool. The other time we went was Monday. We went bowling again as a zone. It’s fun, but I think I did better the first time.

Another single mother that’s been less active for six years randomly came to church Sunday with her two kids, and invited us to come teach her. That was sweet. I’m going to keep sticking to my plan of just waiting around for less actives to come to church;) I’ll meet them and go rescue them. Seems to be working out alright. Investigators, a little bit harder. 

Ok, where do I go next? Um...honestly Elder Morga and I were arguing a lot this week. He told me that I don’t show enough love for him, and a lot of the people here. I can’t go against him, because yeah when he’s rebelling and not living the rules, I definitely am not showing an excess of love. It actually got to the point we went to a meeting for all the people that are being trained right now. We had to go with the President and the assistants, and I called one of the assistants over. We had a big talk, and it was actually super chill. He was not accusing anyone, but totally laying down the law. Pretty much me and Morga talked it out, and we’re doing a lot better now. We’re pretty chill with one another. Laughing again, that’s important. Ok, it was a little more than that on my behalf as well. I knew God would answer me if I was honest with myself, and though Morga was incorrect to act in rebellion against me, he felt I lacked love and consideration towards him. I can’t deny what he felt, even if I disagree or don’t understand. I need to be humble enough to say, I must learn to more openly accept others and their ideas...kind of a little hard for me. Nevertheless, that’s something God needs me to learn. So, as I believe you guys know, we have weekly email communication with President, and he responds to us, and with him I expressed my concerns about my sector, that I haven’t had baptisms in three months, and yeah I’m rescuing, but it’s just not the success that I feel I should have. He shot back a great email, saying that he understood my situation. He gave me some ideas. He told me that he loved me, that he was proud of me, and grateful for the work that I was doing. His last council was, that he feels the success that I’ve brought has been by my own strength, not saying that he’s denying my spirit or anything of that matter/nature, he told me that. It recalled back words of my being set apart by President Child of the stake, to not trust in my own strength, my own talents and all that, but really I can only do this work with the spirit. He’s right. I thought a lot on it, and I still haven’t learned how to truly pray. That’s all so common and often times routine. Faith is truly the most important thing I can come to understand in the mission I think. That’s what will carry me through a lifetime. So, I have a goal to learn a little bit more about faithful praying. 

Back to some lighter stuff though, we’ve had a successful week. We’ve celebrated and sat back a little bit. The mission stake invited us over for a BBQ for all of our zone of missionaries. It turned out good, a little bit long, I was in charge of potatoes. I definitely miss grandma’s twice baked potatoes, but I did not go for that. We went out to the sister’s sector, and helped them for a bit after. I also found out that they have fry sauce here, but they mainly put it on pizza, kind of weird. 

Ok, last thing for tonight. What ended this week was a talent show, out in another area. It’s actually a branch, not a ward. We went out there and planned a little activity as missionaries to help out with the talent show. Me arriving a little late, saw people staring blankly at one another while a few hurried to organize...typical. I lasted about five minutes after greeting all the people before I got up the courage to go forward and grab the microphone. I introduced myself, and invited some missionaries and members to come up and participate. Some came on request, others did not. I have never been a born entertainer, I don’t feel. I’m not afraid of crowds, and I can be a leader, but to stand up and entertain, and be the joke was a little tough. I was trying, but it was funny. A lot of people were laughing. I got myself into telling jokes, a pushup contest, dancing, an aerial, and a back flip, all to get other people to do things. If I did something, they had to do something, and that lasted for like 15 minutes while we waited for everything to get set up, but hey, it’s better than sitting around and staring at one another...so, step up! Only problem I feel towards talent shows here, is that not a lot of people here in Ecuador have not developed their talents, so kind of a rough situation. I felt super, super good...after, a lady came up and she had actually when I was greeting her told me, “I like your smile” in English. I was like, “I like your English, where are you from?” She lives in America part time. It was cool. Anyway, this same lady left me a note in my scripture bag. I didn’t find it until tonight. She wrote me telling me what a good thing I did, and she was happy for missionaries like me, being funny and happy. It made me feel good. I didn’t know who it was, she just wrote at the bottom, I like your smile;) I was like aww...yeah, I know who it is. So, I’ll have that note as long as I can keep a hold of it, and not lose it. A good missionary memory. 

 We’re coming up on ten minutes, so I hope this voice recording sends over email. That will be a good reminder to make these things weekly instead of all at once, but I hope you’ve enjoyed a couple stories, and I’ve filled you in a little more on what’s going on out here. I send you all my love, and wish you the best.  

Mom, Dad,

Not exactly sure what I´m writing this for. I only have a moment more before I have to go but, don´t worry too much about me. You´re right, I´ve talked with Auston too, and we struggle with the lack of success. It´s our personalities. It´s a grind beyond that which we´ve understood before. A different one. I will say with all sincerity that I know God is guiding my mission by revelation to me and his chosen leaders. I am having companions and experiences that I need. He always has something for me to learn. I have to focus on myself as much as those I´m trying to help, and even if they don´t choose to progress all that much, at least I´ll know I´m benefitting.

I love you both. I miss you, think of you often (though not as to become a distraction), and can´t wait for the time to come back. I´m trying to keep up the excitement and enthusiasm I put into a lot of other sports, education, etc. Knowing that truly, this is more important than all of that. 

I tell you what, I can feel the spirit and the Love of the Lord so much in my life. That´s something I never want to forsake.

My favorite chapter this week was Helaman 5.

I love you. Know it, feel it.