27 July 2015 Letter

Weekly Letter - 27 Julio - 6 Months!!!!

Well this computer has some serious virus goin on up in here so there is no way I am going to send or download fotos.  But I can still write!!!

Ok so here is the update.  Ñaña is the best.  This area is massive and we walk a ton.  That is the only down-side.  My comp is amazing.  He is district leader and is super humble.  His name is Elder Cornejo from Babahoyo, Ecuador.  He is super musically talented and really humble.  He is a great leader because he leads by example.  I can't ask for much more in a companion.  The area is super awesome too.  We have a super tiny ward compared with my last area but the members are here to do work!  They all know their role in missionary work.  The bishop is a stud and makes sure everyone is doing their job.  They just changed all the presidencies of all the organizations in the ward, so we will see what will happen.  Hopefully everything we still turn out well.

We have a good amount of investigators and three with a baptismal date.  One family we are working with is the Cajavilca family.  They live like 20 minutes away from our main proselyting area so it's fun to get there!  They are all investigators.  They have two daughters.  Daniela, who is 12 will be baptized this Saturday after about 2 months of investigating the church.  The mom, Norma will be getting married to her boyfriend this week as well so they can be baptized in August some time.  The other daughter, Alicia, is still missing something but is super close to baptism.  We think the baptism of her sister will really help her make a decision, though so we are super excited for this weekend.  They are a great family and they have a great story too.  One day 2 months ago Elder Cornejo and the last Elder that was here were walking in the street and went to buy soda in the corner store when a woman approached them and told them she wanted to be baptized into our church and be a member because she liked our religion.  She had never been taught by missionaries antes (before) but was super prepared and ready for the Gospel.  This woman was Norma, the mom of the Cajavilca family.  Luckily, I am here now and am honored to be able to help them enter the waters of baptism.

We are also working with another family named the Reynaldo family.  They live on the very top of this giant hill we have in the area near Huascata.  The parents aren't members nor are they married but three of their kids are members.  They have three more that aren't members and two of them, Arez (8) and Suja(10) have a baptismal date for the 15 of August and it is fairly concrete.  Their parents have already signed the permission slips and we are excited for their progression.  They are a beautiful family and I love visiting them even though is is seriously impossible to hike that hill.

I have seen the blessings of working hard and will continue to work hard till the day I die.  'Cause after we resurrect we can work perfectly hard without sweating at all!

Elder Wilcox

With Raul Cernades, he got home from his mission like

my second week in the ward and came out with us a lot

#ElderWes

20 July 2015 Letter

Greetings from Lima, but a new area!!  Yes, I had transfers and I don't have much time to write, so I will write more next week.  I have a new companion, Elder Cornejo from Ecuador, a super skinny tall dude.  He is way humble and we get along great.  I am so excited to spend the next five weeks working alongside him.

I am now in a place called Ñaña, in the Chaclacayo stake.  I am no longer in central Lima, but in the outskirts.  It is in the hills, close to a river so it is way greener.  My area is literally ten times, if not more, bigger than my last one.  I love it here and we have so much work to do.  This week we worked super hard and already had two people commit to baptism.  I love it and am excited to be here.  Also, the pension is awesome and feeds us really well.  It is like a 15 minute journey to get there though, so we eat breakfast in our room.  Talk to you all a little more next week.  Love you all.

Hugs, not drugs,

Elder Wilcox

Elder Hamilton, Oscar, Elder Espinel, Yo, y elder Chiroque

 - los ultimos cuatro que sirvieron en barrio portada del sol.

Oscar es un miembro alli.

(the last four who served in the Portada del Sol Ward.

Oscar is a member there)

 The new room. Pituco (posh)

Room

Artificial weight set

New area, Ñaña, Chaclacayo

#ElderWes

Editor's Note

Last night I posted a bunch of Wesley's updates.  I failed to post his letter from 8 June 2015, but have just finished doing so now. (in case you missed it!)

13 July 2015 Letter

Well, not too much to say this week.  Just had a cool experience when we were talking to one really stubborn dude.  As we talked I was explaining to him how we can say whatever to people, but we can't convince them.  They have to ask God to know for themselves and the Holy Ghost, the Spirit, is who convinces them.  He started to laugh and said we must not have the spirit because we weren't convincing him.  Then we explained to him, Remember Jesus?  How many people didn't believe him?  Does that mean He didn't have the Spirit?  He said, no of course not He is the Son of God, are you two comparing yourselves to him?  You can't be serious!

My companion then very firmly responded - We are his representatives and He sent us here to knock on your door because He knows you and knows what you need.  The man then was silent for literally ten seconds.  Then he said thank you and apologized and shut the door.  I was pretty shocked too at my companion's power and conviction but I then realized what he said was true.

I am a representative of Jesus Christ and I have the authority to do what I do, to call others unto repentance and baptism.  I love my calling and all the blessings it brings.  I know this work is true and that this church is true.  In the name our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Love you all and I am praying for every one of you.

Elder Wes

6 July 2015 Letter

Hey everybody. ¿Como estan?

Well, this has been a great week.  We met almost every single goal or excellence put by the mission and exceeded others.  We only had nine new investigators as the goal is 10.  So we fell just short of that.  But we really saw the blessings of hard work and concentrating ourselves in the work as well.  We also were able to receive a visit in our room from the mission president.  He let us know that we needed to clean our room haha.  It was kinda embarrassing but we needed a good slap in the face.  He said that God is a God of order and the Spirit cannot dwell as easily in a dirty room.  It needed to be a celestial apartment.  That was on my birthday in the morning so he also brought me cookies.  But he went to all the rooms in our zone and chastised them as well.

In a movie about our prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, there is a part where he did not follow an impression of the Spirit and something sad happened as a result.  I don't have time to tell the whole story.  But after, he made a promise to never again ignore a prompting and to always act on it.  From that moment, I made that same promise.  This week I have really seen the blessings of listening to the Spirit and following those impressions.  I have also been able to feel more in tune and closer to my Heavenly Father.  We found a lot of new people.  Nine this week.  Every single one was from contacting, which is just talking to people in the street or knocking doors.  We had one time where we were walking down the street at about 8:30 at night and I felt so strongly to turn around and go talk to this teenager that was sitting outside his door on his phone.  We turned around and talked to him.  Then his mom got home from work and talked with us too.  She had been going through some really tough times especially as a single mom and having had her sister pass away recently.  At the end of the lesson, they told us they wanted to come to church and get baptized.  The little experiences like those are what make it all worth it.  All the walking around the whole day, people rejecting us or telling us we are devil worshipers or that we aren't Christians haha.  I love the mission.  I will never forget these things.  I learn so much every day and my testimony that this is the true church of our Savior grows every moment.

Love you guys

Elder Wes

My cake :)

Elder Chiroque 

Alfajores de argentina!

They bought me american candy from the states!!!

Haciendo root beer floats para la familia Romero

(Making root beer floats for the Romero family)

P-day con el distrito portada del sol!!

( P-day (preparation day) with the Portada del Sol District!!)

  

The partay!

#ElderWes

On a lighter note . . .

We received these from Wes for your viewing pleasure.  Brother Sulcaray had some time on his hands (and some mad photoshop skillz).

#ElderWes

29 June 2015 Letter

Hey everybody!

Awesome week full of cool experiences and memories.  I don't know how I could ever forget some of these things.  I love finding new people who have been prepared by the Lord and even though we aren't baptizing like all the other areas, I know we are still doing all we can, which is all the Lord is asking of us.  As I have a lot of friends entering the mission field, especially my buddies from high school, I have seen how much the mission has blessed my life and how some of these guys have no idea what they are about to do.  The journey is a long tough one, especially when you throw in learning another language.  It is weird being the one trying to give advice to them and encouragement.  I don't feel any better or bigger than them, but I know what they are about to start.  I know the things I could have done better in the first few months.  I just hit 5 months and I have learned so much.  I learn more every day.  This week we had so many learning experiences.

We also had a multizone conference.  We do these every three months so this is my second one.  We talked a lot about integrity and being the same person wherever you are, whoever you are with, and whenever.  We talked about not being two-faced.  As missionaries we teach repentance to the people. We tell them they need to have faith and repent and be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost or else they will not be able to enter into the reign (Kingdom) of God.  It is a simple and direct exhortation (if that is a word).  It is hard to do that when we ourselves aren't perfect.  It is a super humbling thing, teaching the gospel.  We realize how much we need to do and in what things we need to improve and progress.  I love it, because it really keeps me in line.  It is a great tool to keep the missionaries in check.

Just remember, no one is perfect.  We all have our faults but if we are honestly trying to improve and do better, we will be OK.  Heavenly Father loves us and knows our intentions.  In 3 Nephi 14 it talks about how He knows us and our needs.  But He wants us to put Him first and not worry about where we will sleep or what we will eat.  It we seek Him, we will be blessed. Gotta run guys. Love you all.

Elder Wes Wilcox

p.s. Got to see Elder Tadje this week!! Good times!

Multizone conference with Elder Tadje

Multizone conference with and Elder Chiroque

All these animals were in this guy's front room

Elder Chiroque y Peter Sulcaray, a returned-missionary

The three of us

#ElderWes