Elder J Wesley Wilcox: 13 April 2015 Letter

Well it has been another week here in the good old South America. The week went by super fast and was full of excitement but first, I have a couple things I liked about General Conference.

Just a few things:

First a funny from our beloved Pres Hinckley: he is talking about working with the ward council and the bishop to help less active members and others in the ward regarding mission work. He says take a chance on your bishop and rely on him even if he may not feel adequate for his calling. He says, "Think of the risk the Lord took when He called you!" I was cracking up. I really miss that old man but it is so true. The Lord is really taking a chance and trusting in a bunch of young adults - basically kids - to lead his work in the world. I am honored and so grateful to be one of those kids the Lord has put His trust in.

From conference I really loved them all. But from Saturday morning I loved Elder Perry's talk about how our church is different. It is because we have an eternal perspective on the restored Gospel. The fact that we can say that Familes Can Be Together FOREVER is really amazing and unparalleled by any other religion. Families are everything and he talked about how in heaven, the organization and government is based on the family unit, which on this Earth is the center of life and the key to happiness. This is so true.

Later in the Priesthood session I loved how President Uchtdorf talked about our Savior and how He would act in a ward council meeting. How amazing that would be! He talked about how the Lord wouldn’t want to know the numbers but the condition of our heart. That is key. The Lord has a perfect heart and we should try to be more like Him. He also said that the most intelligent, appraised, and accomplished man to ever walk the Earth was also the most humble. Wow.

More next week because I don't want to be all mushy with you all the time. But mushy is my favorite!

SO I was sick last week with a few awful things and for a few days I was discouraged, exhausted, irritated, and exhausted! We only had a few lessons every day- still this week was our best so far. Any way we did not get too much done during those few days and I was tired of it. Saturday we had the most intense planning session ever and had our plan a and b lessons down to the point. Then we made sure we had plan Cs and Ds. And then just to contact after that. But on Sunday we had 8 people show up to church and then 6 lessons with investigators with a member present, visited some less-actives, gave a blessing to a member, and blew our goals out of the water. We were surprised at how easy it really was to just do all that. All we had to do was set the goal, work hard, and pray all the time, and it all turned out great. It was an answer to my prayers as well because we had watched a training video for missionaries called the District. It was a small video about planning and the numbers they wrote down were ridiculously huge and we knew they were impossible to achieve, or so we thought. After Sunday, we knew it was accomplishable (is that a word). I also knew that I need to work harder and I will have more success.

What else? Oh yeah I got my first Peruvian haircut. No time for pictures today sorry. OH! I gave my first talk in Sacrament meeting and it went really well and I was surprised at the time I took and how well my words came out. Thanks to my studying the promise of the Lord was fulfilled that the Spirit will tell me what to say and how to say it. All the members came up to me telling me I did a good job and that they were surprised at how good my Spanish (they call it castellano here for some reason) is doing for only having 2 months in the mission. Just like how people treated me after giving a talk when I was like 8 haha. Well I can't think of anything else and I only have a couple minutes anyway.

Love all of you and thank you for the prayers. I am being blessed out here every day and I know it has a lot to do with all of you! Hope you all are able to get something out of these letters I write. I try to let you all know how I am doing, what is going on here, and some good spiritual enrichment. Love ya all!

Elder Wilcox