Week 96 Ecuador

Voice recording  “The Finale”  7/25/16

Hello to all of you beautiful people in Utah, where I will, believe it or not be, in 1 week. The week has cruised on by and shot me head first into this final week of my mission. President Riggins even gave me a hard time about dying in a meeting we had as a zone, saying that he would be honored if I gave the closing prayer, as it would be my last…terrible. 

Honestly, I still don’t know what to think about coming home, so I try not to think about it to much. It’s hard believing this will all end. I almost feel like I wish I could be an apostle and have my next mission booked in three weeks from now, but I guess in some terms I will in going to college, working, whatever we can pick up. 

The week has been good though, we’re staying focused in the work. Elder Coton is teaching piano classes while I go to the branch council meetings, getting some investigators interested, getting some priesthood volunteering to go out and work with us, doing some visits. It’s pretty tough though still. The branches are a little bit…I can’t say weak, they’re about as big as a ward, it’s just leadership. The leaders here serve their hearts out for 3, 4, 5 years, then they just die. They don’t want a calling, they don’t nothing, it’s kind of sad. 

Outside of the branch, we also took a 24 hour road trip to do inspections on the sectors in El Triunfo and La Troncal staying to work a day. In La Troncal they only have three missionaries right now, and are organizing one big sector. They have a new branch president there, so we got to meet with him to kind of get him clued in on what we’re doing as missionaries. The weather there is beautiful though. I imagine it’s what Tiffie lived in her mission for two years, just cloudy, cool, little bit of a breeze. That’s what I imagine anyway. It even rained a little bit in the morning. Me and E. Coton took a morning jog in the rain, very invigorating. 

As a zone we have seen some highs and lows, but honestly we’ve accomplished a great deal in these past two months; more than they’ve accomplished in a long time, and I’m very grateful for that. Though strangely as things are looking I will be the last ever zone leader of El Triunfo due to the decreasing number of missionaries that are coming to the mission field right now, and a lack of prepared leaders here in the mission ready to step up. What were eleven zones will be dissolved into eight, affecting some of my old sectors, Quevado is going to be put into one zone where as it was two, Babahoyo is going to combine with another zone, and Duran South is going to get a little bigger as Triunfo and Troncal combine and Naranjito will adjoin with Milagro. Almost all of my past zones where I served are just going to get crunched together, but that’s ok. That’s the vision that Pres. Riggins has to work best.

So the week goes on. We met with a crazy mission leader in El Trunfo who tells stories of his conversion and years in the church like an old war veteran. Interviewed a sweet old man who is half blind, who honestly for two years now I’ve read the sacrifice that God requires of us is a broken heart and a contrite spirit, but the spirit taught me what that really means as I talked with this man and he was so repentant and humble and just wanted to do good, was so sorry for what he’d done wrong in his life. Wow, that interview hit me. Sometimes you have some good ones. He was baptized Saturday as well as our investigator Byron. I can’t send pictures, because my camera chip has a virus. Hopefully we’ll be able to save the pictures that are on there when I get home. We can figure it out. 

We did a way awesome activity this week on Friday night. It was inspired by some sisters in one of my one zones. They came up with it, and I took the idea. It was a desert party. We planned it with a couple weeks in advance, and asked all the organizations to prepare some treats, cake, brownies, jello, fruit salads, all kinds of just stuff. We brought together about 80 people and at least 18 of those were investigators, and the other half were probably less actives. It was so awesome. The whole branch was so impressed at how well it turned out, and me too. It was all improvised, we did not know exactly what we were doing, but we bought a big bag of candy, and we were doing scripture questions and tossing them out to the people that could answer right. We shared a lesson based on John 7:17 about those who live the gospel will  know that it is of God. That it is his doctrine, and his gospel. We said you have to try it to know if it’s good or not, and so that was kind of the idea of eating the cakes and seeing if it was sweet, if it was good. So we ate lots of cake, and awarded the winner. We had a contest who had the best cake, and our less active that we are rescuing, we awarded her with a Bonbon. It’s a big chocolate treat thing. It’s pretty sweet. So, that honestly wrapped up what will honestly be my last activity that I will ever organize in the mission, and my last baptism. 

You know for as simple as our lives are here as missionaries. How we live, what we do every day, sometimes it can be frustration, or boring, or who knows what, but I have really tried to love the things that God loves, do his will, like Jesus Christ did. I think that’s what makes it so hard for missionaries to leave the mission. At some point along the way were not doing it because its our duty to God anymore, we’re actually doing it because we love it. 

This is my final mission voice recording. I hope it gets to you all well. I hope I get to you all well…ha! We’re going to enjoy this last week. We’re going to work hard, and I am going to hold my head high, and see you all in the airport. I want you all to know that I fully expect you to call me Elder Wilson until I’m released by President Wadman…ha. No, it will all be great, so have a great week, all of you take care. I love you, and see you soon.