7-27-08 E-MAIL

AREA: PERU MTC

COMPANION: ELDER CLAMENTE

Ok, so I didn't understand when I got here, but we go out like normal missionaries... every saturday we are here. We went to Valle Sangra, which is the second poorest neighborhood in Lima. It was mind blowing. We were there for about 10 hours, mostly visiting less active members. We had a guide from the ward come with us so we didn't get lost. I've never seen anything like this. Remember in my first email I talked about those shacks on the side of the mountain? That's where we started. Most shacks were about the size of dad's office, and most did not have roofs. The first house we came to we didn't get in. And it was only one of the two times we got rejected all day. These people are so amazing I can already tell, even when they aren't really interested in what you're saying you still get to come in as an honoured guest. And I think it helped that i'm a gringo. But anyways we knock on the first house, and this three year old runs out screaming with an old plastic oil can and smacks a chicken with it. It was so funny. A few houses later we visited a funny little man and his wife. After a few minutes of talking we went into his house. He had about 20 chickens and ducks...and 2 turkeys. it was so great. At the end of the lesson he took out his camera phone and took pictures of me, and said his fam would go to church that next day. After we were done, he wanted to kill one of the turkeys so we could eat it. it was great. Im not emphasizeding cuz i dont have time,but the poverty here is unbelievable, and yet everyone is really really happy.The kids I can tell will be my favorite part of this. They are so cute - unbelieveably. Later we did contacts and I got to teach the first lesson in spansih for the first time. And it was a real person, I was terrified and said three sentences. Thats actually what happened all day. But this guys name was Juan and he said he would pray about the restoration. I have 6 minso I gotta wrap this up. This place is awesome, im totally going to be able to do this for 2 years. ok, now to questions.

didnt play football, it was only americans and I had to do my laundry.

my comp... he bugs me a bit cuz he's pretty pushy and controlling and Idon't have enough spanish to say anything to him.

my shedule is pretty normal, just like utah basically.

I cant print emails so its a bit crazy, but keep sending them I'll figure out how to type faster. 25 gringos are going to santa cruz and all the latins that are going come in a week and a half .

valynn- I got your letter, I wish I could swim with the kids right now. no diareah yet, the yogurt is saving my life here, I eat it every day, thef oods pretty good actually...well most of the time. Thats crazy about the bomb, haha!

Tell vince its totally cool about not writing, I cant really write him whileIm here either. ok 3 min. Ummm idk. tell everybody hey, make sure you find out when martin gets his call and where, try and get beau and austins emails to me. idk about the voice recorder thing, ill figure it out later, tell me more about it, the computers here are really slow. I need a few more pairs of socks. like two pairs of whites and twoblacks.especially when Im in the field. Im getting close to halfway done here! love you guys!

bye, bye,

mike

ps wheres the cord. did it get sent? bye bye

7-23-2008 letter

DATE: JULY 20, 2008
AREA: PERU MTC
COMPANION: ELDER CLAMENTE


We received a letter from Mike!

Dear family,

Ok, so this letter isn't going to get to you guys for about two weeks and I get to e-mail in two days, so I really don't know what to write. Elder Clamente and I are in the chapel because he want to play the piano. I think there is something wrong with my Spanish, because when I asked him how long he's been playing, he says, "dos anos, quince minutos cada dia." That means "everyday for two years he practices for 15 minutes." But that's gotta be wrong cuz he's amazing. Having a Latino comp. is really helping my Spanish already, but I need to work harder because we proselyte every Saturday all day. Yesterday we practice taught some Peruvian members and I had absolutely no idea what any of them were saying.

Tuesday morning is P-day and we get to go to Lima temple. Some of the native elders have not had the chance to be endowed yet and we had a class about temples. They are all so excited to go. During the closing song, Elder Chaca (sounds like "chalk" with an "a") started crying in front of us...broke my heart. Elder Chaca is my favorite, me always yells out "WILSON" like from Castaway. He's just a character!

Since my comp. is one of the elders that isn't endowed, I get to be his escort which should be neat, but I think our session will be in Spanish, which will be tough.

Peru is pretty cool. The food is getting better, we had fried chicken today. The bread here is just amazing. I don't know how to describe it, but it's like nothing I've had in the US. I really like the weather. It's a lot like the Oregon Coast except for the nasty dogs everywhere.

I gotta run.

Love, Mike

7-22-2008 E-MAIL

AREA: PERU MTC
COMPANION: ELDER CLEMENTE

We received a letter from Mike today. He seems to be doing well besides the expected confusion of being in a foreign country without knowing the language completely. Please excuse the grammer from his letter....he only has 24 minutes on the computer. So, by the time he gets his e-mails and writes there's isn't much time for details.

hola, hows everybody doing? its really wierd typing on a spanish keyboard,things have been moved around a bit. I sent you guys a letter last night, but it probably wont get to you for about two weeks. And it looks like i only get one letter a week out of here, so thats pretty lame. I guess ill just write to random people since im sending you all an email every week. I think im getting all the emails people have sent. I havent had any mail in a while, and moving countries is probably gonna make it pretty tough for the things that have been sent to provo. Dear elder looks like the best way to get things to me. My companion is pretty funny, hes not good at soccer which is very rare among south americans. But hes really good at piano. and i just figured out today he likes to make up his own words for things, like ¨planificacion¨. Hes pretty goofy.

Lima is so loud, we figured out here people dont use turnsignals, they just honk and that means they are turning, or slowing down. So it gets really really anoying. We went to the lima temple this morning cuz many of the latino elders didnt get a chance to go through b4 they came here. it was so confusing there. in a meeting last night about the temple,president groberg called out my name for a list of people that are going to help with anointments, which i dont really know what they meant by¨help¨, cuz they didnt want me to actually do them. But then we get there and i got stuck with all these missionaries that needed to go to imigration instead of the temple. I didnt figure that out for a while, but then i got into a spanish session and got to wear the very attractive headphones. and right when the session started the elder next to me goes ¨oh no, im gonna fall asleep i can feel it¨( we got up at five to go). So the whole time he told me to elbow him when he started to sleep. But after the session we get out.... and NO ONE from the mtc is there. it was just us four gringos sitting in front of the temple. we started talking to a peruvian member and he told us that a bunch of them were in the little store in the parking lot, but nobody was there. After an hour we were pretty sure wed been left. But then a few more elders came out of the temple. And then some worker from the mtc showed up and he was really mad and told some of us to get in his van. i still really dont know what happened but it was just super confusing. OH! i forgot, as we were sitting there somebody kept pointing at the street, so i turned around and saw... A BUS FULL OF WHITE PEOPLE! FROM UTAH! it was some lds humanitarian group, so we talked to them for a bit. OK ive run out of news. So now ill do some bussiness. (fyi after only a month of spanish i nolonger can spell anything in english.)

Everybody?- If youre just sending me a letter, use dear elder... i dont have the address on me right now and i only have a few min so ill send it in the next letter. Somebody remind me when you answer this. It goes to utah first though and then from there to me. I remeber it had bolivia on it so i guess they just track where i am and send it. But ,ya i need some more letters. i need pictures too but thos will have to be in packages, which are very expensive to send. Well i gotta run, the latinos want to play american football... tee hee.

Love you all

And...He's Off!

Michael is officially no longer on U.S. soil. He flew out last night to the Peru MTC. He will be in Peru for a couple of months learning the Spanish language and then will be assigned to his first area in Bolivia.

He had a three hour lay over in Atlanta last night, so he was able to call and say his final good-byes before he left the country. I can't even express how good it was to hear his voice one more time and know that he was okay and doing well. He is homesick, but said that he keeps reminding himself that "homesick has never had a fatal case".

Michael was picked up yesterday morning, at the MTC , to be taken to the airport. Apparently, the church does this in one big dump/drop-off. They loaded his bags, along with the other 45 missionaries he was traveling with, into a U-Haul type of truck. When they arrived at the airport their luggage was dumped into a big pile on the sidewalk and the chaos began! Michael's flight plans were to fly from Salt Lake to Atlanta and then take a 6 hour flight from Atlanta to Peru. On the flight to Atlanta, he flew with 45 other missionaries. I told him that that's the kind of flight I would want to be on. Flying with 45 missionaries...you know that that plane is going to be protected and have a safe trip!!! Michael sat next to a couple that were traveling to Florida on vacation. Mike said his conversation went something like this:

Mike: So, where are you guys from?

Couple: Salt Lake.

Mike: Oh, so are you members?

Couple: NO!

Mike: Oh, so are...

Couple: NO!

Mike said the remainder of the trip was very quiet. Maybe one of the other 44 missionaries were able to get to them!

He flew out of Atlanta at midnight and should be in Peru by now. He is nervous because they do not speak any English at the MTC there. He is doing well with his Spanish but it is still hard to go from speaking English one day to waking up the next and only speaking Spanish. He will do great though!

Picture time!

Here are a few picture that we took of Mike
while he prepared to leave for his misson!

(Dad, Mike and brother in law Chris)















(The Call)




















(Brother in law Josh and Mike)















(Right before Mike got set apart, we didnt dare wait to take pictures after)















(Nephew Kyle with Uncle Mikey)

7-3-2008 Letter!

DATE: JULY 3, 2008
AREA: PROVO, MTC
COMPANION: ELDER MITCHELL

We got a letter today from mike and I thought that I would share with you what he wrote... Here it is!

Well it's Saturday now, and Im doing laundry. We are done with the really busy first couple days. And today we finally had gym, which was a life saver. Classes are going really well, I'm really learning a lot. And spanish is pretty easy still, Monday we'll probably pass up what I learned in 2 years. The days are seeming to get a little shorter, I dont think I'll get cabin fever too bad cuz I just keep telling myself I get to go to Peru in 3 weeks. My teachers are super cool, one is named Brother Anthony, and everyone says to him "El es la leche"... which means "he is the milk"... its just funny. We laugh at really stupid things cuz we are windowless for a few hours at a time. But we had a sub one day and his name is Bro. Stocking. Turns out hes from Connel, and he gratuated in 05, so he knows Tony Lee, Chris Knight, all those guys. And he knows who the twins are. Hes a little Korean guy. The best part is he was Cyd's piano teacher.

So I have my first misson story.... so me and my comp Elder Mitchell (I'll talk about him later) are reading in this little plaza, and this Elder is telling us about how he got converted and we are reading a scripture with him, and all Elder Mitchell hears is "You got to be kidding me!"... Turns out there's pigeons in Utah, and they eat purple berries, cuz one took a pig poo off our building and landed right on my shoulder. And one of the Elders in my District is Elder Marks, and hes from Hawaii and he says its a blessing for that to happen.

Well my comps name is Elder Mitchell from Rexburg. He's awesome, we are getting along perfectly. He's hard working and we're learning together cuz we both dont know much. My district is great too. Elder Cunningham is the DL, hes from near Mt. Shasta in California. Some of the Elders are kinda goofy, but are really good Elders. We have 11 missionaries, 9 Elders and 2 sisters. 4 are going to spokane, Elder Cunningham, Elder Jacobson, Elder Jensen, and Hermana Weston. So have Chris and Valynn watch for them. And then me, Elder Mitchell and Hermana Combs are going to Santa Cruz.

Well all is going well. I hope everything is going well at home. And sometime this week i'll set up my email. Hope to hear from you soon.
Love you all
Elder Michael D Wilson