4-6-2009 E-MAIL

AREA: LAS FLORES, PERU
COMPANION: ELDER MURILLO


Hey everybody, sounds like everythings going pretty well at home. Things are
going great here. I'm starting what I think is my last week in Las Flores…
I’ve had 29 of em.  But I'll find out next week if I'm really leaving or
not. Last week was pretty great, we had an awesome PDay, we climbed a huge
hill in our area and could see probably 2/3 of Lima, we took some pretty
great pics up there. I did divisions and spent 2 hours in a place called
Caja de Agua (Box of Water), the rules say gringos are allowed there, but we
stayed out of the most dangerous parts. I was with a brand new elder, Elder
Nicho, he's got about 2 months down. The time with him helped me realize my
teachings not that bad, cuz I was the one who had to save the lesson a
couple of times. We had a lady named Rosa miss her baptism yesterday, she
just didn’t show up. It's so frustrating here, every person you meet says,
‘’YA! I'll be at your church Sunday at 10Am sharp, but then nobody comes’’.
But what ever we'll keep working with her and another lady named Rosa
(theres a lot of them) for their baptisms for April 11th.
Conference was nuts, I felt like I got more out of it then last time.
President Monson’s talk about the German woman watching her 4 children die
in the snow just killed me.
Most of the talks were about preparing ourselves, and doing the basics
like we’ve always been taught. Wow, it sounds like things are kinda crazy
over there right now. It got me thinking ‘’what’s the US going to be like
when I get home?’’. But ya we’ll get to that in 15 months. One thing that
made me say ‘’whoah’’ was Elder Packard of Ballard ‘’the generation of fun
and games is over’’
After conference Betsi, the first person I baptized, brought her hubby
Raul to conference. We taught them in the chapel after conference, the
spirit was SO strong, the strongest I’ve ever felt so far in a lesson. We
taught him the first lesson, and committed them to get married the 18th of
April, and then Raul will get baptized later that night. I’m really going to
have a hard time saying goodbye to my converts on the cerro, especially this
family.
Also funny story about the baptism last week with Cesar, I'm pretty sure I
didn’t mention this: We didn’t have any clothes to baptize him in. But a
week b4, a little girl got baptized by her dad, and he used my pants. But
when he gave them back, the girls ¿tunic? (spelling) was in there too. That
was all we had, so we used it. Cesar looked beautiful with that nice little
bow on the back, haha. We were able to hold it in with him, but after he
left we were dying laughing.

Crystal- Gracias por the marriage advice, I'll look for a girl closer to
WA. And did you see Tim Bleazard in the choir?!?

Kim- ¡Good luck with the surgery! I'll be praying for you.

EE- The biggest difference now that I get along with my comp is that we have
the spirit. If you don’t have the spirit, you’re not doing things the Lord’s
way. I'm glad to hear Rolands doing better.

Mom/Dad- one of the packages made it here, it had the new address. I’m
pretty sure the other one got lost. I actually have heard some things this
week about us going to Santa Cruz. We might be going next week actually
haha. But I don’t know, my Zone leaders have a conf today with the Pres, so
they’re gonna find out a bit more for me. But ya if some have gone in,
that’s really promising. I just hope my whole group gets to go together,
we’ve talked a lot about having the moment together in the airport.

KK- don’t worry if you don’t write me, Im fine. How far along are you? Haha,
that’s a really funny story about Brian. Ya if you send me a package be sure
and use the new address, or else we’ll have troubles.

Well I love you all a ton. I’ll keep working here while I still can, and ill
let you know what happens with Bolivia.


Love Elder Mike Wilson