October 14, 2013

Hello Mom/all,

Happy Columbus day!!! Hooray for rather pointless government holidays, particularly as the government is already shut down, at least as far as I know.

 

Life is rather unchanged in la jungla. Sadly La Familia V--- no estan casados a este momento (is not married at this time) . This is because the hermana doesn't have her birth certificate with her. Sadly, in order to get married, you need either a government issued photo ID, or a photo id with a birth certificate. She doesn't have a government ID and as such, needs to take the second option, but she can't, :( (sad face). She'll have to go get it from Mexico so I don't see her getting baptized any time soon. C'est la vie no?

 

We have two new investigators that we taught this week but we dont have return appointments yet (A--- and B-----) as well as two current investigators but have had appointments fall through (C----- and M-----). The ward leadership supports us, which is a pleasant change from the past but the membership as a whole is not actively doing anything to "hasten the work". But, what can i expect, I was the same way. However, we visit members and part membrers regularly and do our best to help people. The bigger problem is that therejust arent many hispanics here. so, there is not much spanish teaching we can do :(. I have yet to meet a moreno (The Urban Dictionary describes it as an endearing term that Spanish use to describe someone with dark skin) who speaks spanish. they typiclaly are not very receptive to us and tend to think we are the feds. Its a bit amusing actually, particularly if we are wearing our outercoast that look exactly like a trench coat.

However, I can say with great confidence that the members love missionaries, as they feed us well and regularly. The most common food of the dinners being... tortillas, followed by rice, beans and chicken, generally with a salsa of some kind. yay! I love it. there's only one downside which is, that the Hermanas are all very sensitive to the cold, so we got sopa de pollo (chicken soup) for 3 days straight last week, but their was tortillas and salsa a dar picosidad so it was all good. Plus it's warmed up again so we are not eating sopa, gracias a dios.

 

Also, Thanks for teaching me how to remove a door panel, as I had the opportunity to go and remove a door panel for one of our eternigators as the window fell out of the bracket holding it in place. That was also fun. I didn't ever think that I'd be disassembling a door panel on my mission. It made me very happy that I had my multi-tools with me, as the hex wrenches and screwdriver were essential in removing the panel. The funny thing was that afterword A-----, the eternigator, asked "how much do I owe you?". We charged her a lesson. She then said she'd give us cake as well, that'll be nice. The only catch is that the appointment is tonight and her boyfriend with whom she lives loves the NFL so we'll be trying to teach during an NFL game, I don't see that going very well. But that's life too.

 

The only constant in life is change, and the more things change the more they stay the same. The catch is that we need to keep being hopeful, as if we have not hope we must needs be in despair, which cometh of iniquity. That was the overriding message from stake confrence yesterday. Although I didn't get much of it, as I was continually giving my seat up to other people. There must have been a thousand people in the building by the end of the confrence. It was presided over by Elder Richard Packer of the 70. He spoke on the Atonement and how it gives us hope, as the Atonement is the only thing that gives us hope in this life and in an la vida venidera (life hereafter). That is why we need to share our hope as more and more people are in despair or are just confused everyday. For example, there is a rally on wednesday in a nearby park to show that "we have not forgotten" about treyvon martin, and how the "the whole...system is guilty." So, I may have a picture of a rally to send y'all next week. won't that be fun. I just hope it doesn't spiral out of control like last time. Aparently last time the missionaries around where I was, all got evaced to the mission office as there was rioting. There was also a missionwide curfew to avoid problems. I hope that doesn't happen again. Although it'll be a fun story in 20 years. However, I don't want to deal with it. But life is how you deal with change. that is the great test of life.

 

To grandma and grandpa guymon, I hope you enjoyed Utah, and the time there. I got your card, thanks for it. I will put it to good use, and will endeavor to continue doing missionary things.

 

Anyway, I'm off to play ultimate now.

Have a good week Y'all.!!!

C

 

Elder Wilson