8-26-2008 E-MAIL

AREA: PERU MTC
COMPANION: ELDER PUGLISI


This was the day Mike was leaving for Bolivia. I thought I'd share what
happened. We could use your prayers to help him get there soon.
Love,
Claudia

BOLIVIA HERE I CO....oh wait.

yaaaa...... So its 7 pm on august 26th and im still sitting in the CCM.
Turns out while we were here theres been some problems with the our visas.
So there are 20 elders who will be waiting in peru. IDK what the problem is
but the church has a bunch of lawyers over in Bolivia trying to fix it. The
plan right now is for me to be in the Lima East mission for 6 weeks. But we
could leave in like 3 days, i just dont know. They told us that really if
wed just gotten on the plane tonight they would have let us in but it would
have made some customs officials angry and make this thing tougher for the
next set of elders. So right now im pretty bumbed to be perfectly honest.
Ive heard so many things from the Santa Cruz elders that are here... about
like building chapels out of palm trees and just going out into the deep
jungle. And everyone says Pres Maynes is AMAZING. But Matt had to wait and
he's still alive so i guess i can too. And pres Nash (Love that guy, he use
to be over the tri cities) says that are calls will NOT be changed cuz our
calls are from the Apostles. And if they are I would be SOOOOOOOOO upset.

There are some cool things about this. Since the CCM is in the East
mission i get to sleep here every night, since thats easier than finding me
another place to stay. And my whole district is here too, so we get to see
each other every night, and i love those guys. Me and Elder Puglisi are
rooming together when we get home, and probably Elder Smith too. And i get
showers that won't kill me if i touch the shower head.

  So yaa about mail.... I have no idea what to tell you. I havent had mail
in a long time cuz everyone is sending it to Santa Cruz, and i dont think
its a good idea to send things here cuz i have no clue when im leaving. But
its also pretty depressing not to get mail... HAHA this is so frustrating.
So ya im still in good old Lima. I do like the place more when im outside
working so thats a plus, and I'll be way better at spansih for Santa Cruz
cuz of this, but we were all SOOOO excited to go so its tearing all of us
up.
 Well now that i got that out of the way i can tell you about this Park
thing we did on saturday, i have a pretty awesome story about it I'll share
at the end. So we went to the park from 9 till 6, and my job with Elder
Garcia was to contact people and try to convince them to go in, and also get
their information for missionaries. I now know the basic excuses that most
people give, mostly "No Hay Tiempo", or "Vivo muy lejos de aqui". its funny.
But we found some amazing people. We got i think 1,000 refurals that day.
Ok now i can tell you my awesome story. I have absolutey no doubt in my
mind now that Heavenly Father prepares people for us. So we find this little
short man named Franco, and we start teaching him, and he's not really over
excited but he's accepting it and says he's open to all religions, and he
said he'd have the missionaries over to teach him more. And then as we are
shaking his hand and thanking him he goes, "oh ya i forgot to tell you two,
last night i had this dream that I was standing right here in front of
Kennedy Park, and there were two glowing white people talking to me...."
Wow... It was crazy.

Ok so I've been on for a while, i better get off, i think i got everything i
need to say. I guess you should probably just keep sending my stuff to
Bolivia and they'll just keep it in the Mission Office.

Love you guys, sounds like everything is going well there, I'll be fine here
dont worry.  and hey... Im already a 12th done... so thats crazy i think. OK... Bye

8-19-2008 E-MAIL

AREA: PERU MTC
COMPANION: ELDER GARCIA


Subject: Give us freedom

Hey everybody, how's it going? Its almost noon right now, we got to go tothe temple today for that last time in 2 years. So me and Elder Puglisi stayed for about 3 hours. Things are going good here, I'm not fluent but I've come along way in 8 weeks. I'm just so ready to get out of here. This mtc is amazing for learning spanish. But I don't feel like I've learned much doctrine, and its very frustrating. Every day we have these fake situations, that either have to do with the word of wisdom, the sabbath day, or lesson 1. And now they are starting to repeat the same exact situations. We just keep saying that once we get out into the field it'll be different. So you know how we go proselyting every saturday? this saturday they are having a big mormon... convention I'd guess you'd call it, in this big park in downtown Lima. and there's supposed to be 2000 people there. So they're sending us down there for the day. Everyone we talk to says it's the biggest day for missionary work in Lima.

The elders in my district are soo funny. Elder Puglisi and Elder Meridith are awesome. I wish I could explain to you guys well how funny this place is. We just have to laugh at our situation sometimes, or else we'd go crazy. Ok, so I keep finding all these connections with people here. The area medical director is named Elder Terrance Drake, and he is amazing, he teaches priesthood for the gringos and he is the best teacher I've ever heard. And he's from Reno. So I asked him about Brian and LaRae. He knows them really well and called them as temple workers. He told me to say hi. And then President Nash of the 70 spoke to us last week. And he's from Seattle. Turns out he use to be AN area authority for Tri Cities and knows Pres. Montierth pretty well, he says hi too.

Ok sorry I don't have that much to say this week. I'm just ready to get out of here. I'll try and call when I'm heading to Santa Cruz. I'll probably spend the night in La Paz so I'll have lots of time. Ok I have something very VERY VERY important... the water here tastes like feet, so I'm gonna need lots of crystal light and gatorade mixes to put in my water. Ya that's about it... It sounds like I have a ton of mail in Santa Cruz so that'll be pretty nice. And ya, I just wanna get out of here. By this time next month there's a really good chance I'm gonna have some baptisms, so thats pretty crazy. Thats awesome Matt got one, I hope he gets to Mexico soon. Well I'll probably send another email on tuesday hopefully b4 I leave. AndI'll try and call too.

Love you guys.

Elder Michael D Wilson

8-12-08 E-MAIL

AREA: PERU MTC

COMPANION: ELDER GARCIA

ok, just to warn you im just reading off of a pad of paper so this is really unorganized. first, idk if i said this in my last letter but i forgot to tell kim and mason that when i flew to peru, i met a man who lives in yakima and has family in lima, that was pretty funny.

My bed bugs are gone, but my bites arent. and b4 i forget, make sure to put more minutes on that long distance card cuz its basically all the way gone. If i have any time im gonna try and call again in lima and la pazs airport. my new comp is elder garcia, hes a good missionary, hes 25 so hes pretty mature.

This last saturday only the gringos went proselyting, it was so fun. I went with an elder from salt lake named elder johnson. He actually was in the same zone as shayne in provo so thats pretty funny. We went to a richer part of lima, it was a lot more modern and nice, but the people are definatly not as nice. We only talked to one of the 16 families we were assigned to. We ran into some jehovas witnesses, that was pretty funny, they offered one of their booklets and we were like sure well read it, but then they refused to read ours. we tried street contacting without a guide, its really funny to see peoples reactions to us on the street, they get pretty mad sometimes. But we met a lady named roxanna ( a lot of peruvians do not have spanish names). She was like ive been searching for a church for about 6 years and ive actually been to your church. so she was pretty ready to be taught so we gave her some pamphlets and hopefully the elders in that area will teach her. We also taught a catholic lady the first lesson, it was the first time ive taught a lesson to a real person where i did a lot of the talking. the first time i said about 2 sentences, the spirit was really strong and she said she could feel our spirit, it was awesome.

I have cabin fever so bad. I just want to leave peru, i have enough spansih to get my message across, and i just want to learn the rest while im out there. Theres a ton of bolivian elders here, they say santa cruz is soooooooooooo much prettier than here, we cant see the sky cuz of the all the smog, and all the plants are nasty and black from polution. Santa cruz is green, and fresh and clear and doesnt smell like exhaust. we had the day out with the pres and it was amazing, the arcatecture here is so pretty, ill send my memory card some time to show yall. the bolivians speak so much clearer than peruvians - i love it! they told us about all the bugs and stuff here, its not a big deal though.

the elders have funny names now. one is elder bueno, another is elderfieztas(yes his name is elder parties) and our teachers name is hermano aguilar, which really isnt a word, but aguila is an eagle, and when u put the R at the end it makes it the verb "to eagle"... i know elders are wierd im sorry. i have a cool quote but not enought time to write it... haha sorry. Crystal, im so glad you sent a package! hopefully you sent it to bolivia. Mom i didnt buy a belt that day, but i can wait till i get to santa cruz. Valynn that message is from jarred bates, hes one of my young mens leaders. thats funny bout the elephant. and i really want a moped when i get home. ok maybe i have enough time for this quote i think it was from elder ballard: "if you could only see the end from he begining, you would never even think about going home." thats not really all of it but it gets the point across. if i get reael homesick send that to me.

love you guys! g2g

8-5-2008 e-mail

DATE: AUGUST 5, 2008
AREA: PERU MTC

Hi everybody, my companion just left like an hour ago. We werent the best of friends, but we got along ok by the end. Right now theres only about 30 elders in the mtc so tonight we get to go shopping and tour some places in lima. And we get pizza hut today for lunch(almurzo, theres one more word for jamen). tonight we are getting new districts, new leaders and new rooms. Im glad about the rooms part cuz i have bed bugs, which is sooooooo not cool. But ill talk more about that later. I got kk's package with the pics and mom i got the three packages from you. I got my cord and ive been trying to take some pics, ill take tons today on the tours. Two days ago i got dear elders from jamen, mom & kk. But they were from like July 22!, and yesterday i got grandmas package that she sent on the 29th. SO idk the deal there, dearelder is safer but slower. Valynn, i only have one dear elder from you, idk what happened to the others.

Ok so im starting to figure out what im going to need monthly in a package. SOAP, some type of bodywash\shampoo thing like i had, any brand but oldspice. I had to leave my mouth wash in utah, so please send me a few of those little travel sized ones every month too. I have some vitamins and ive been taking them, but the bottle says to take 4 a day, and down here i think im going to do that instead of one a day like usual. And ive come to a very sad realization... now that im here, and im use to Peruvian food.... American food gets me sick.... But it is SOOOOOOOOOOO good, so send me some in very small amounts. Im always craving junk food, twix, resses, skittles, startburst, oreos. But also i should probably have some granola, and jerkey, stuff that has some form of nutrition. Theres aslo some things i need send just once, i need a little calender that has peoples bdays and other holidays on it so i can keep up on that. Also can someone send me a little bouncy ball? only have 5 minutes left! ok, and dont send me any letters to peru, send them to the santa cruz mission home until i get a home address from bolivia. Tell kendra congrats. Sorry if i dont answer all your lettersa and stuff cuz i dont have time. Grandma, thanks for the letters. Jamen ask grandpa about my scout camp hell have stories, dont miss campouts, theyre great memoires. KK got your pics, thats crazy about josh thinking about baptism. Mom, got the cable, ill look fora belt today. EE tell mike betz thatnks for the letter, hes on my facebook. Kim thanks for letter. Kort send the movie to my house. I totally 4 got aobut reunion. Crazy about jeff and jason, gotta go!

love you all.