3-30-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: EDLER MURILLO


Hey everybody, sounds like things have calmed down after all the weddingstaff. Things are going awesome here. This transfer has been flying by. Weare already two thirds done. This was a tough week, everyday we had tons ofpeople fail their citas with us. And on Friday we had one of ourinvestigators, Cesar, fail his interview, so we were pretty bummed aboutthat. Our DL told us he just said he didn’t want to get baptized yet. We gotpretty bummed but we just kept going. The next day we still had one lady,Viviana to baptize. I baptized her, it was great. Then on Sunday Cesar cameback to church and we talked to him and resolved some of his doubts. Then weasked him againg about baptism and he said yes. Then he asks, ‘’when shouldI get baptized?’’ and My comp Elder Murillo goes… ‘’RIGHT NOW!’’ So wecalled our ZL and baptized him a few hours later. It was great. I'm learningso much from my Comp, about just having faith and trusting that things aregonna work out if we just put our part in.

I finally cooked the spam mom sent me, it turned out pretty great. Even my pensh liked it and she has hated all the other things I've cooked.We still have a ton of people to baptize b4 I leave. There are 5 people Iwanna baptized b4 I leave, the husband of Viviana, Bruck (Brooke), a familyof three and another lady named Rosa. We´ll see how it goes.And I just found out like 10 minutes ago, that the stake presidency isthinking of closing my Ward haha. My ward is the smallest and is surroundedby 4 other wards, so they my cut it up between the othe wards.

Josh- Happy late B Day, sorry, I wanna try and keep on top of B Day whileim out here.

Mom-Good to hear mail is on the way haha. With the change in address themail has been pretty messed up, hopefully things will start getting to me.Be sure and use the new address I sent

. Kim- April 10th got it. The work´s going awesome here since my birthday. Ibaptized 1 person my first 7 months in the mish and 12 the last two months.And I can not wait for conference, it’s a whole nother deal on the mission…especially in another country.

Cystal- Ya its cool to talk about worldly stuff, haha. But just don’t remindme about Disney world. And Things are amazing with my comp, we haven’t hada single problem this whole time.

Grandma- Im starting to see how the time flies, I remember thinking how faraway conference was. Then after that ill be calling b4 we know it, and thenill complete my YEAR haha.

EE- wow I really hope Roland gets better, keep my updated.

Valynn- All the gringos listen to conference in English, its not the sametranslated. Its so much better listening to their own voices. I misscrashing in the family room for conference. Haha and after awhile everybodyis asleep cept mom. Ya the language is going great, afer 6 months mostelders have it down. Every now and then I dream in Spanish.

Well I gotta go. Everybody take care of yourselves, have fun in the warmweather.Love Elder Michael Wilson

3-23-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER MURILLO


Hey everybody! Sounds like things are calming down now that the receptions
over. Kay, b4 I forget our mission moved its offices, so send your packages
and letters to this address.
      
         Mision Peru Lima Este
         Calle Los Agrólogos 368
         Urbinizacion Las Acacias de Monterrico
         La Molina, Lima 12, Peru

Anyways, this week has been really quiet, not a whole lot happened. Nobody
got baptized this week; our whole zone is having a tough time this month.
But we have three people ready for this Saturday. We taught a lesson this
morning to a kid named Cesar and we committed him to baptism. I've never
seen anyone change so fast. We met him 2 weeks ago, his girlfriend brought
him to church. He didn’t want anything to do with us, I thought we should
move on and find somebody else, but Elder Murillo said we should keep going.
And with every visit, he made HUGE progress. We taught him yesterday, and
whenever we mentioned a baptism date he'd be like ‘’whoah! Calm down hang
on’’. But this morning he just nodded his head. This is teaching me I need
to have more faith in people, and I just need to go into every lesson
believing that the person will not say no. One part of faith is believing in
God, another is to believe in his children. That part I'm slowly working on.
 But ya things are going well here, this transfer is going by soo so fast.
The weathers starting to calm down a bit more, which is super nice. Its way
easier to climb around those mountains. But I'm starting to run out of those
multi vitamins mom, if you could send me some more in April. And I need some
baby wipes, NOT antibacterial wipes. Anitbacterial has alcohol… which burns.
I'll let you guys imagine how I found that out.
  Elise, congratulations, thank you for helping me with my goal. And no I
haven’t heard anything bout Bolivia, its only the things you guys tell me.
  Kim- when is your due date?

    Well I gotta go. Things are going well here. Everybody take care of
yourselves.
                     Love Elder Wilson

3-16-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER MURILLO

Hey everybody!
 Sounds like things are going well up there, getting ready for the wedding
and all.
  Things are just peachy here. I got to baptize Yeraldin this Saturday,
she looks a lot like Kaitlyn. She was the last of the group of girls we
found in the cerro, now we have a lot of work to do with all their parents,
we cant leave these girls without baptizing there parents too.
 I got to dedicate the home of Betsy and Camilla and Nichol this week too
that was really cool. We felt the spirit really strong.
 I found out the secret to living without tv, music or movies for 2
years…. WARD COUNSEL, that is some entertaing stuff. It made me remember why
I want to be secretary of the young mens for the rest of my life, I felt so
bad for the 1st counsellor. He opened up the floor to the leaders of the
ward to give ‘’suggestions’’ on how the ward and the bishopric can improve…
that’s when the young womans president yells ‘’YOU FORGOT MELUSKAS
BIRTHDAY!!’’… every little thing that had ever happened to anyone in the
ward in the past 4 months came out. The best part was watching 2nd
counsellor just cracking up in the back. It was a mess, but it was really
funny to watch.
 The weathers pretty nasty here right now, the temperature has dropped,
but the humidity has sky rocketed, you feel like you have a blanket on all
day, and all night.
Mom- I got the ensigns today, thank you much. But please DON’T send them
in Spanish, they already give them to us. And don’t worry about me feeling
neglected, I'm fine, and you all have stuff to do too.
Grandma- Thanks for the news about basketball, when its over can you send
me some news about the games? And about who won it all?
Crystal- congrats, I hope mexico was super, you reminded me one thing I
really need to work on is following promptings, sometimes I'm a wuss about
it. But last week I felt like we should climb this hill to this house, and
we ended up finding a lady named Rosa. We committed her to baptism the first
visit. It was neat.
Valynn, ya I talked to Derrick for just a few minutes. Ya I'm doing fine
here, staying healthy, I still haven’t gotten sick. But the rice makes me
bloat up… not cool. Sounds like your having fun with your puppy.
EE-good luck with the job, what kind is it? And yes Te amo means I love
you… or more like I love thee.


PS you guys need to look for a fruit, idk if its in the states, but its
called ‘’maracullá ‘’ here. It’s the greatest thing I've ever tasted.
Love, Elder Michael Wilson

3-9-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER MURILLO

Hey everybody, sounds like the wedding turned out well. I'll admit reading
about everyone being together makes me pretty homesick, but it's all good.
Me and Kim can have a little pitty party about it when I get home.
 Turns out missions are way better when you have a companion. This week
Elder Murillo has been explaining a lot of little things to me. About every
conversation ends with the question ´´you didn’t know that? ´´ and then I
explain to him that I never actually had a trainer in my mission. But things
are going so much better; we are actually studying together, and actually
planning, and TALKING TO PEOPLE.
And like Elise said having Elder Torres for my comp has made me way less
picky about my comps. There are some little things about Elder Murillo that
would have bothered me b4, but now they don’t matter at all.
  We had an awesome week. Elder Torres left my area Monday morning, but
Elder Murillo didn’t come till Wednesday night. So for 3 days my comps were
our 18 yr old mission leader kevin and another 15 year old Fito. So I got a
little crash course in what training is like. I liked it quite a bit, I
worked them hard haha. Fito is really quiet so we’d be walking and I'd just
tell him ‘’ you're contacting the next person we see’’, he didn’t like that
too much.
  We had 2 more people get baptized this week, Javier and Kati. It was so
great, we had to break into the font again the ring of keys we had didn’t
have the font door key, I love Peru. We didn’t have time to clean the font,
but it looked clean, so we just filled er up. Too bad dead ants blend in
with black grout. Once the font filled up we had about 200 of the poor
little guys floating around, but we only had about 5min till we had to
start, so they all got baptized too.
  The really cool thing that happened this week was when we talked to
Kati's parents about being baptized. Cuz we had talked to the mom b4 and she
said Kati wasn’t ready. But then we came back when the dad(Hector)was there
too, he said it was ok. But the mom Maria said no. That’s when Hector took
the lesson over for us and taught for about 20 minutes. First he just said
‘’ Maria you're just scared, God wants Katy in this church, he has a purpose
for her’’. Later we asked him to read one scripture in Galatians about the
fruits of the spirit. After he started talking about how God had sent us
(the Elders) to the house to teach with the spirit…. ‘’Ya thanks Hector,
that about sums it up’’ After, Maria said it was ok.
  Its been an awesome week, things are going great. I'm still a horrible
teacher, but I'm going to improve a ton this change. Everybody take it easy.
                                         Love you all
                                          Elder Michael Wilson

3-2-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER MURILLO


First of all HEEEEEEEEEEEEES GOOOOOOOOONE. Its been a long 4 and a half
months, but now, things are looking up.
 And my new companion…. Elder Murillo (ll= y sound). Haha, he´s been the
other area of my district for the last 3 transfers, and has been living like
4 minutes from my house, so we already know each other really well. He´s
from Ecuador and he's awesome. This next six weeks are gonna be a good time.
The funny thing is right now I live outside of my area in an area called los
jardines. And Elder Murrillo right now lives in the boundries of my area.
But now he's going to move out of Las Flores to Los Jardines…. So… he can
start working in … Las Flores. We both just started laughing when they read
the changes.
 So I have 8 months. Its so crazy. Time messes with you out here. We'll be
watching conference b4 ya know it then I'll be calling  again… and then the
YEAR.
I got the package from Valynn, thank you much. But I only talked to Derrick
Durrant for like 5 minutes, he seemed really cool. I sent some letters home
with them for you all. One is for Crystal and Matt. Mom told me a while ago
I should send one to be read at the wedding, so I did finally but Idk if its
gonna get to you guys in time. He's got them right now, so you can give him
a call.
  My area is still doing good, we´ve got this little guy named Javier ready
for baptism. Hes 11 yrs old and looks like an umpa lumpa, he's hilarious. I
gave him a Book of Mormon Saturdy and he shows up to church and is like
´´Elder Wilson… you didn’t sign anything in it´´. ´´haha, lo siento
Javier´´. But we might have 2 other people getting baptized, Kati and
Geraldín but we have to talk to their fams a bit more first. It's amazing
how much this area has changed since I've been here. Our zone was ´´The Bad
Zone´´ where they sent the bad elders. But now we baptize almost more than
anyone in Lima.
    Mom-Ya Pres Leyva told me a bit about Elder Christopherson. That is
very exciting. I would love to go, but now I've become use to Lima and can
definitely wait. Whatever happens I'm good with it. Those snow things are
called Snowcats, we´ve had some fun times in those.
  EE- Avalanche huh? Haha, I cant wait to get home haha.

Valynn- Ya lots of Elders still remember Derick Durant. Haha those stories
about Jamen and Kyle made me laugh really hard.
 kk-Im glad to hear Brian is still talking about me. Honestly one of my
fears is that he forgets me. All the other kids are old enough that im
pretty sure they wont forget… maybe Kyle haha.
Crystal/Matt- Hey I hope my letter makes it to the wedding. But if not,
good luck, love you guys.
              Alright well I gotta go. Things are going awesome now. Me and
Elder Murillo are going to have a good time these next 6 weeks.
                        I love you guys so much, have fun at the wedding.
                                    Elder Michael David Wilson

2-23-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER TORREZ


Hey everybody,
  Well its been a good week. We had another person get baptized from our
hill ´´The Money Maker´´. Her name is Susan. The baptism was so nuts, we
only had keys to the front door to the capilla. And we wanted to sing hymns,
but almost everyone at he baptism were brand new members, so they didn't
know any of the songs. And the hymnarios were in the bishop’s office… which
was locked. But theres this weird little glass window above the door, so we
took the window out and had our mission leader climb through, I got it on
video… it’s a good one. Then after we figured out we didn’t have keys to get
into the font. We’ve climbed into the font b4, but this time it was totally
full. But right as we were getting ready to hop the railing the bishop
showed up. We started super late but its all good. When things go wrong in a
situation, it just makes it more memorable. I just sat and laughed.
 Our last P day was amazing, in the spirit of Los Carnivales we  played
with water balloons. The Zone leaders wanted to play some type of balloon
toss game, but 3 minutes in we were just like…´´ya…whatever,´´ and started
peggin each other and filling up tubs and drenching each other. It was a
good time.
 So… I have one week left. That is neat.  We were hardly together at all
this week. We are always doing divisions… basically to get away from each
other haha. I'm excited to get a new comp, there is a slight chance I might
be made senior comp, but probably not quite yet, but we’ll see.
  The work here is going really well. I had one convert in my first 5
months here, and 7 since my B Day. And we still have a lot of people who
should be getting baptized. But the thing is we still don’t work that hard,
we could be doing much much more. I'm laying down the law with my next comp,
even though I'll probably be jr comp.


Mom- that’s good Martin did a good job speaking, I love that guy. He’s going
to be awesome.
Dad- Now that you mention being in an area for 13 months… I really wouldn’t
mind  being here for a long time. I have an awesome ward, awesome room, and
still tons of people. But I do miss American Elders, haha, I still have a
tough time joking with most of the latin elders, they have a way different
sense of humour than me. Take care in CA, how long are you there for?

Valynn- 2 things. 1 can you send me some Purrell (no idea how to spell it)
the hand sanitizer. And tell Elder Durrant NOT to take the package to the
office. The elder in charge of the mail is horrible, and it won't get to me
4 ever. He was in an area called Los Jardines (the gardens) so he knows the
lady that cooks me breakfast, it’s the wife of the bishop, sister Haidé
(´´I-Day´´), can you tell him to take the package to here house?
Elise- Ya my mission is flying by… well most days its flying by, when I take
it one week at a time it goes so fast its ridiculous. But when I sit there
and think how many MONTHS I have left, it seems like 4 ever. And the
weirdest think I've eaten is cow intestines, but they tasted like shrimp.



Well I gotta go I love you guys so much. And I´ll have a new comp the next
time I write!
Love, Mike

2-16-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER TORREZ


Hey everybody, first off send my love to Martin, he´ll do awesome over
there.
Well I think all my packages got to me today that was nice. One got to our
office January 19... I don't understand that. Anyways ya thanks for thinking
about me and sending me nice things.

It was a good week, not too eventful. Our investigator Susan didn’t end up
getting baptized this week, but she will this Saturday. But I ended up
baptizing an 8 year old named Adrian, he was supposed to get baptized by a
member but wanted us to do it. We did some killer service this week, hauling
bags of rocks up a hill, it killed all of us. But it's already starting to
cool down a bit so that made things a bit better.

We had a little movie night with our families on the hill (cerro). We
watched the Testaments and most of them cried. But the cool thing was we
watched it during a rain storm, so the entire time we had water coming in
through the roof, so that made it pretty memorable.

I only have 14! 14 more days! I’m so excited. We did our weekly goals and
all I wrote was ´´JUST HANG ON!´´. But now my district thinks I'm gonna be
senior comp in two weeks…. Yaaaaa. Not too sure about that. At 8 months it's
not out of the question to be senior comp, so I's possible, but we´ll see.
Its more the fact that I know my area so well and have really good relations
with the members and investigators.

And one thing. Can you guys send me some Ensigns with the conference talks
in them. Mom, I think you have a bunch saved from years past, I wanna start
studying some more of these talks, cuz I get a ton out of them.

Valynn- Honestly I totally forgot about Valentines Day till I read your
email. The mission has weddings every month, and they were on Valentines
Day, but we didn’t have anybody to take to the weddings, so it was a normal
day.

Mason- Ya I've done things like that with my comp. I remember one night I
just said ´´what does it matter right? You’re leaving in a few weeks´´. But
now I just don’t really care haha. I'm just doing what I need to do.

Kim- We have changes every 6 weeks. And this transfer ends march 3rd. And
since my comp is for sure leaving the area, it's almost certain that I'm
staying. But  our President has taken out both elders from one area two
times in our zone already. So I might be leaving. But more than likely I'll
be here again this next transfer. And the next transfer starts in march and
ends 6 weeks later like the 14th or April or something.

Well, ya, good week, pretty tranquila. Everybody stay warm, and I will too.
Love you guys
Elder Wilson

2-9-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER TORREZ


Hey everybody!
 First of all mom, no I didn't get any of my packages, even though the one
from the lady came almost three weeks ago, its been sitting in the office.
Elder Hale told me his dad had to call to get them to send it. The elder in
charge of the mail is on a power trip and does this for no reason. So ya,
just call and ask for Elder Clark, he's not the mail guy but he speaks
English. Things get moving when parents call. I'm just mad cuz the cookies
are rotten by now. But I forgot to say in last weeks email that I got the
pkg with the ball and paddle and the toy gun.


 ….annywho. Things are going pretty great down her in the Los Flores. I
FOUND MY CAMERA CHIP! Awesome. The weeks are starting to go buy really
really fast now. We had another lima wide conference so I got to see all my
buddies. Elder Godoy of the 70 spoke, he was amazing. I ended up translating
for a missionary couple that don’t speak Spanish, so I didn’t take many
notes, but I listened much harder than usual, cuz your mind can't wander
when you're translating. He talked about the pre earth life and how we've
actually been training for our missions for atleast 5000 years.

Ha, not much else is going on. Camilia is back from the hospital, but she's
going  back in for surgery on her brain, I don’t really understand medical
terms in Spanish yet  so idk what she has. And we´re preparing Mishells
sister Susan for baptism this week, so that'll be neat. We might also get
some of our investigators married this week, but we’ll see about that. And I
got some more letters that had been sent to Santa Cruz… in July haha. I got
some from Cyd, Crystal and Valynn, the news was a tad old, but its all good.

Mom-Ya the Zimmermans are in our mission, I'm not 100% sure what their
calling is though. And Matt Mackay is getting married? Is it to Jenny? 

Dad- a kid in my ward is going to Argentina on his mission, and his pres is
from utah, Pres Lindahl, he served a mission in Uruguay Paraguay, and he's
in his late 50s so idk if you know him or not.

Valynn- Ya I really feel the spirit in the hymns now. Love at home is one of
my favorites.

Grandma, thanks for the sport update.

kk- ha I remember mom told me when I went through for the first time ´´now
mike, just trust us, don’t freak out´´. You guys are moving upstairs?...whos
living downstairs?...me in 16 months?


Alright guys you take care, I love you all soo much.

Elder Mike Wilson

2-2-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER TORREZ


hey everybody. Missions are wierd. In my first seven months, I really tried
to work hard and to get my comp to work all day. But this change I turned
the pressure down a bit and just tried to maintain some peace, and.... BAM
we get 6 people to baptize. I baptized a girl named Mishel Matyory
Velazques, heres a fun one, Ñaña. and my comp baptized Josi and Nichol. It
looks bad baptizing just young girls, but their parents gave them permision,
and now we are teaching the rest of their families, so its all good. Well we
moved again, to a way nicer room. The owner of the house has a fridge he
lets us use, so thats.... awesome. Its getting really really really hot
here. The humiditys starting to get to me a bit, we need to buy a fan for
our room, its a bit stuffy.
Carnivales started yesterday. Its basically a month long water fight…. And
EVERYBODYS invited whether they like it or not, including us. A lady almost
got me yesterday from her roof, she had a big tub of water but it missed.
This other kid tried to hit us with a catapult thing, but that didn’t work
out too good either.

Other funny story, we met the family of Kati (Kathy), one of the girls we
are teaching. And her dad walked in sporting a very very very small speedo.
But hes a good guy, they seem pretty interested, and they support Kati 100%
in going to our church.


So we went to Pieros B Day party (Piero is the son of Betsi who i baptized
last week). Now the kids only 3, but he can already dance. Its that latin
blood. then afterwards they all played this game where everyone gets to hit
the loser, but it turned into HIT ELDER WILSON, so after a while we ran out
of the house, and then about 20 little kids chased me and my comp and my
pensh about 10 blocks  down the street. Everyone thought wed robbed
something. Which is funny, cuz how dumb would I have to be to commit a
crime, im literally the only white person for 5 miles.

Some bad news, Camila, Pieros sister got really sick Saturday night, shes
got a lot of health problems. Shes in a hospital in another mission, we
still haven’t received permission to visit her.

We have another mission conference this week, one of the area authorities is
coming to talk with us. But honestly im excited more cuz I get to see my
boys. Everyone is still in Lima cept for Elder Meredith. But he went to the
jungle, so I don’t feel too bad for him.


Mom- I don’t know elder Errils. Ive got gold bond and some Peruvian talcum
powder too, the powder smells like lime so im good

Crystal- The package didn’t show up today, it should have, but well see bout
next week. Good luck with wedding plans. Im starting to see how fast the
mission really goes.

Well I gotta go guys. Love you all, take care of yourselves.
               Love Elder Mike Wilson