Week 92 Ecuador

6/27/16 Voice Recording

Hi family, good morning. It’s Monday morning; I hope you’re all doing excellent. Since a week ago when I dropped E. Coleman off, it’s been a super long week. We’ve been battling out the salvation of our zone, doing all we can do to secure the goal we made. In May we set a goal to save/rescue 25 souls that includes baptisms, rescues, all that. We are super happy to announce that we did better than that, we got 26! We had a family fall through because they couldn’t get married, and then we just dug and dug. I know that God guided us to people who were ready. They had attendances in church but for some reason or another they hadn’t been progressing. We went and taught them by the spirit, and wow they came through. We had 8 baptisms this week as a zone. It was really nice. We baptized 3. One of our guys didn’t pass his baptismal interview, bummer. When your 70 years old you’ve got a lot of sins to clear up I guess…bad habits. We definitely saw little miracles occurring daily as we pieced together the goal as a zone. Definitely happy that the month is over though, because I am tired. I feel super grateful that God really forced us to look back and search for people that otherwise may have been forgotten, and not given the attention they needed, and they wouldn’t have been baptized. I know that God directs his work, that the Holy Ghost does speak to us. He spoke to all of us in a meeting, when we came up with these people. 

The baptismal service on our part was powerful. I got to baptize the three people, they asked me to. Me and E. Cotton, he plays the piano super well; he played and I sang I Believe in Christ in Spanish. Then we had some powerful testimonies of the members. One especially by Bro. Espinosa is his name. This guy’s crazy. I see a lot of stuff down here, and sometimes I wish I wouldn’t. When he was 17, this is like 25 years ago, he had a third degree burn down the back of his leg. Since they don’t have medical insurance, and don’t have money to pay for the operation, he has lived with those burn scars, and it’s like an open wound still. He showed us, and oh it made me cringe. He limps around and everything, but he works and maintains his family the best he can. I think it’s a Miracle that this thing hasn’t been infected, that he hasn’t lost his leg. They invited us over to eat, and we ate lunch with them. You guys have got to understand, they live in a house of cana (sugarcane), and plastered up on the walls so the rain and the sun and everything doesn't come through the cracks, they have glued on the walls pages of Liahonas. Talks, and talks, and photos…that’s their wallpaper, Liahona pages. It’s just shocking. He about made me cry. In his testimony, he looked at me, and he was crying, and he said “Thank you for sharing our poorness, humility, and struggles”. Then he paused and said, “An American from Utah in my home. An Elder from Zion”. I wish I could have done something to help this man. Sometimes I feel so helpless. I have the priesthood power of God, I’m worthy to use it, and I exercise it every day, but then in so many situations people want to get baptized, and oh your not married, I can’t help you. Or you have a third degree burn on you, I don’t know how to help you. It’s just sometimes I feel powerless. It’s interesting, but I know that God can direct us, and he will direct us how we should do his work. This mans gratitude touched my heart, and I will never forget him, or his wife, 

Anyways, other than that we’ll go on to some positive notes. I was doing P90x, and I was doing some pull ups with the bands, and I almost pulled the wardrobe down on top of me. Well, I got out of the way quick enough, and no harm done. E. Cotton, he’s a great workout partner too.  We get things going.

Well, it looks like this is going to turn out as a short voice recording this week. A returned missionary invited me to write out a piece of my testimony, and so one evening I sat down and wrote a short testimony. I guess I can end with that for you guys. I based it off of a scripture D&C 68: 4-6. I love it. I know that I am a Child of God. I am the son of Allen and Cammie. We are sealed as a family for all eternity. I have been taught and made sacred covenants with God since 8 years old, as I seek to do and be what my Father has called me to do. I know Jesus is my Savior, and has redeemed me from the person I do not wish to be. I know He and the Holy Ghost and one with the Father, as can I be, if I like them, seek to save and strengthen my brothers. I have been led to many of my chosen brothers in Ecuador. I know that this is the mission where I was called by a prophet of God and need to be. With my brothers we have loved one another and the Lord for his mercies. I truly needed them as much as they needed me. I love righteousness, and I pray every day to cringe at the sight of sin. Life is filled with trials, triumphs and joy. Our covenants will guide and protect us and blessings will abound as we endure faithful. Until that day when the Holy Spirit of Promise testifies of these truths and we are welcomed to a heavenly home, with our families to reign in love and righteousness forever, just as Christ does, for he is the way. I leave that with you all, with a lot of my love. Wishing you all a wonderful week. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Week 91 Ecuador

Elder Coleman is off to the great USA while I carry on in the labor of the Lord with my new companion, Elder Cottòn from Guatemala. He has 9 months and is the luckiest kid ever to start off as a Zone Leader with me because we are going to complete the goal this month and eat lunch with President Riggins!! I`ve been fighting for this the past year and I`m so excited because the potential is there. Sad that Elder Coleman won`t be here to see all of his great work pay off. ...moment of silence ... Ok! Yea, we`re still going to carry on with the baptisms of Juan and Daniel this Saturday, two great future priesthood holders for the church. Fun to see their progress. 

We did go out with a bang though. Pres. Riggins asked us to go to a Stake Presidency Mtng and teach the Presidents and Bishops the importance of retaining Recent Converts and Less-active members using a new format called the IPM, following their progress up to 1 year. Great learning experience for me and always fun to work with church leaders to see how the church is really run. So crazy to see how revelation comes down from the Prophet himself or the 12 Apostles through the 70`s, mission presidents, stake presidents ... straight to us! I know this truly is the church of Jesus Christ and He leads it.

Keep praying that we can find ´God`s Chosen people` and guard them away in the Stakes and Temples with immovable testimonies of Jesus Christ, whom we love and serve. 

Love to you all, Elder Wilson

cool Lizard???

Elder Coleman & I with tourism train that passes through town 

New companion Elder Cotton from Guatamala

Week 90 Ecuador

Life in Naranjito is moving along! I`m an emotional wreck sending Elder Coleman home, but the work will go forth and I am eyes forward on MY mission. We had a couple baptismal invitations bounce off hearts of stone this week and come back to slap me in the face but a couple sincere investigators stepped forward too. Can`t ask for more. 

We had the very special opportunity of a lifetime, Making History as 3 missions came together under the voice of an Apostle. We all shook his hand and learned from his great counsel Saturday morning. 

Elder Rasband transmitted the Love of God and spoke with confidence. Experience was manifested in each of his stories or gospel principles taught as we shot questions at him. Most of all my vision of my Savior, Jesus Christ, was illuminated as he spoke a familiar, yet special Apostolic witness of Him. I will testify every day of my mission that Jesus Christ is our Savior, he lives, this is his church, there is evidence of that. He is a God of Miracles, of mercy and justice. One day, whether it be in my lifetime or the life of generations after me, he will come to redeem all those who love him and have come to know him through service; a lifetime of service in his kingdom would be well spent. We serve him because we Love him.

...I love every one of you, my family, and the only thing that has kept me from coming home throughout these past two years and what will keep me working these past 7 weeks is my love for Jesus Christ.

I love you all.

Pitahaya, coconut, cheesecake...all delicious!

Week 89 Ecuador

3k Anti-Tobacco Run

1st and 2nd place goes to "the gringo Elderes"

...we made the newspaper

Baptism of Sabina Castaneda

6/6/2016 Voice Recording :)

Alright, hi family. Let’s get all caught up on a busy, busy week. We are back here on Monday, but last Monday we’ll start this out with a spiritual experience. I know we don’t get enough of those. So, last Monday night we were at a family home evening with a somewhat less active family, except they’ve come to church twice now, so they’re progressing quite well. Anyways, we were teaching the restoration, and the invitation was that they work towards receiving temple recommends once again. I don’t know that they’ve actually ever gone, there not sealed or anything. It was cool because the wife said that she really would like to get sealed someday, and her husband agreed. We taught them, and the wife was kind of sick, so I got this spiritual impression that I should ask her if she wanted a blessing. So I asked her, and she said yes. Then I asked the husband if he would give the blessing? He’s like I’ve never given one before, so we showed him how to give a blessing. We each put our hands on her head, and he gave a really choppy, broken, simple blessing, but it was powerful, powerful. We finished, and she stood up with tears in her eyes, and gave him a big hug, and they kissed. Spiritual hot zone right there;) We were just like Yes! Are job is complete…and we left them. That is how a missionary knows he does his job good. aka…being guided by the spirit.

Anyways, we had some other good lessons the next day, and then we were off to the temple Tuesday afternoon for a 7:30 endowment session at night. It was all wonderfully familiar, the spirit, and everything that was there. Me and Elder Coleman were, sorry, Elder Coleman and I (proper english here) were one of the last to enter into the celestial room, and it being what we believe the final visit if Elder Coleman to the Ecuador temple, we just sat down and, not even by each other, in our own parts of the room, and I started praying and soon found the room nearly empty. Everyone else had left, and I cannot describe the complete stillness that was in that room. It was incredible. I can truly say for one of the first times that I received revelation. The Holy Ghost talked to me about my responsibilities, how to help me prioritize, and some counsel that I needed. Definitely a special experience there. 

Alright, now on to the fun stuff. We this week had a special invitation I guess you could say. There’s a policeman that works below our house. We kind of talk with him sometimes, I gave him lesson on the restoration, a little booklet and stuff. He invited us to run in a community 3k race, so it was only like 2 miles, but it was for an anti-tobacco awareness event type thing. So, we have these little t-shirts, mormon helping hands from the LDS church bibs, and we went wearing those, and handed out a bunch of word of wisdom pamphlets, and we ran this race! It was actually competitive right there at the end, coming around the last corner. We haven’t run much, but I kept my pace with the Elder Coleman. I never mentioned to you guys that he is like a state champion in the 800 in track, so I was pretty happy with myself. I gladly took 2nd place, as we sprinted all out for the finish. There was a big old ripped gym dude giving us a run for our money. So, hopefully we made some friends. We each got a medal for placing 1st through 3rd, and we also got a trophy. They gave E. Coleman the trophy, and I, and we happily gave our trophy to President Riggins for letting us run the race. E. Coleman found a great scripture. You guys will have to look it up in 1 Corinthians 9:23-24. We wrote that on the bottom and gave it to President Riggins. It was fun, it was fun. We were at the leadership counsel the next day, Wednesday after going to the temple and he told the story to all the missionaries that were there. It was fun. We didn’t know until yesterday in church, but a bunch of members were telling us. Hey, you guys were in the newspaper! We were like, wait, why, for what? You won the race, we saw it. So, we’re trying to get a newspaper article, but apparently we made it in the newspaper. Way to advertise for the church, right? 

So the traveling didn’t stop. After getting back from Guayaquil the next morning we had to make the hour and a half to two hour drive to our zone meeting, and no pressure with the assistants there, but we were able to lead a good gospel conversation on faith, the nature of God and the trinity. After that we split up E. Coleman and I. I worked with E. Merit, a long time friend here in the mission who is going home with E. Coleman on the 20th…2 weeks by the way, we’re kind of freaking out. I stayed here in our sector, and then the next day, traveling again on the bus 2 hours to Babahoyo to pick up E. Coleman. All the traveling in this sector wears us out, but we’ve had a really, really successful week. That left us two days in the sector, and we’re super happy we had a great baptism of our friend Sabina. Love all my converts, sorry, their not my converts, the Lords converts, I said that wrong. She’s good, her mom’s a member, and we’re also teaching the mom’s boyfriend. He’s a super cool guy. We’re hoping that he and maybe two other men can get baptized the end of this month. 

One of these guys is our 70 year old investigator. He’s Juan, and he didn’t go to church this week because, well we passed by after and he was pretty sick. We saw a pack of cigarettes sitting in his house, so we were like hey, teach the word of wisdom. We taught him the lesson; this guy is a champ. He’s like well, if the Lord tells me to do it, then I’ll do it. We were like ok, Juan we want to do two things. First we want to get all the coffee, or alcohol, or tea, or cigarettes, anything that’s in your house and just put it on this table. He just had coffee and cigarettes, and put it on the table. We were like okay, now Juan we want to give you a blessing, so you can be strengthened, and overcome these addictions. He’s like yeah, yeah, yeah…we give him a blessing, and he gets a newspaper and wads it up, and smashes the coffee and cigarettes, and gives them to us to throw away. Yes, dudes a stud! So, we’re really excited, hoping he can get baptized at the end of the month too. It’s a bit of a heartbreaker that E. Coleman won’t be here. Oh, who am I going to be with? Crazy.

This same lady that…she lives in Milagro, a half hour away from here. She’s the one who drove out here and presented us to Juan, and took him to church the first time. Yesterday in church she brought another reference, so this lady is on fire. She might just stack up all my baptisms right through the end of my mission here. These next two months, that’s what I’m hoping for! I tell you what, she’s a returned missionary. I hope I can be as pilas as her when I go home. If all members were willing to give references and work in the mission work, Wow. It would be a different story. The success would explode. Makes me realize how ignorant I was about mission work before I came out here. I had no idea. I remember Brian Keith being called as the High Priest in charge of the mission work in the stake, and I had no idea what his calling was. I was like oh yeah cool. 

Last thing, I was thinking, and I don’t know how it’s going to work out, but it looks like I’ll be getting home on my flight that Tuesday afternoon at like 1:00. I probably won’t get released by the stake president until the evening, 8 or 9 o’clock, something like that I imagine, so if you guys run into the missionaries, I know we don’t see them a lot, and I know I’m going to be missing you a ton, but I would be thrilled to get home, down a slice of that apple pie, and head out with the missionaries for the final hours of my time set apart as a full time missionary. So if you run into them, if you get it set up, I’m down. If not, don’t worry about it. I probably wouldn’t know how to preach the gospel in english anyway. 

Okay, well keep praying that the work of the Lord goes forth, and we will keep putting the shoulder to the wheel. So take care you guys. I love you. Bye.