Cambios, Heuvos, & Intrepidez

Querida Familia,

Oh what a week. It was Semana 6! I don´t know how the time is passing so quickly, but it is flying. A lot of things happened this week actually:

We had an Easter Egg Hunt! And it was the bomb!! haha The members were all a little skeptical at first, but they came around pretty quick. I knew they liked it when they came back with like 20 eggs after we told them they could only find 5 apiece. Now I´m just hoping that they found all of them because we could´t count them after because everyone started to eat them... haha Also, if anyone can tell me why the Easter Bunny brings eggs that would be great because I could not explain it to the people here...haha

For the record, it is a lot of work to cook 120 eggs. Also I recommend spoons and not fingers to remove eggs from nearly boiling water. #don´taskmehowIlearnedthat

After, the ward had a little farewell for H´ Ludlam. She finished her mission this transfer and is headed home this week!!! 

I´m an orphan.

Haha but seriously, I just got to Mexico like 2 days ago and she had like 6 months left, and now she´s leaving. It´s madness I tell you.

Family Photo

Mi hija

We had a stake activity with the youth this week (it was a like a day-in-the-mission thing) and so at one point we had 7 youth in a lesson with us. Haha poderoso. You can bet Carlos learned his commandments from them. :) 

Cambios were today! Or as I like to call them, stay-the-sames. Yep, I will be in Chuburná 2 for at least one more cambio. Haha who would have thought I would be in the same area for Christmas and Mother´s day? haha My companion is Hermana Torres. She´s from Guatemala, has 10 months in the mission, is one of the smallest people I know, and we´re going to be the sister training leaders for our zone.....

Yo & Hermana Torres. Told you she was tiny.

...I don´t know what Presidente and los asistentes were thinking either....

Anyway, same area but new adventure. I´m excited to get to work with the other hermanas and continue learning and growing as a missionary. It´s pretty funny that I´m staying because the whole ward basically sent me off yesterday…

Still here. :)

And I am really excited to be here. There´s a lot of potencial in this area. We just have to find it. :) 

Presidente has talked a lot lately about being BOLD. That we have an important message and so even if people are sleeping or eating that we need to insist on teaching them. And as awkward and uncomfortable as it can be it is SO true. I don´t want to show up at judgment day and have a group of people ask me why I didn´t insist on telling them the truth. And so that´s what I´ve decided to do. 

Hna Delfina, 70 years old and the best missionary out there

I can´t make up their minds for them, but I can tell them the truth. And the best part is, something miraculous happens when we do that. They may not accept what we´re telling them, but they can feel that it is true. And they can´t argue with it. 

I know that this gospel is the truth. I know it´s the only way to find true happiness and direction in this life. I know my Savior lives and that this is His Church. 

I love you all. I love being a missionary. 

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson

Lace suburn...I promise I used sunscreen.

Hermana Castro accidentally hit me with a branch...that had spines...

Canas, Semana Santa, & Conferencia

Buenas Tardes,

So it was Semana Santa, or Holy Week here in Merida. Fun fact, the members here don´t really celebrate Easter because the catholics REALLY celebrate Easter. Which led to all kinds of adventures this week, the highlights:

-Hermana Castro has found like 3 gray hairs. I told her it´s from the stress of having a daughter. Hah. But really, her training ends this week and I´m kinda sad about it. Also I´m kind of sad about having gray hairs. 

-Tracking down a reference in the more sketchy part of our area Friday afternoon, we passed some drunks in the street, didn´t feel comfortable and turned down a side street to get away from the them...and ran into another group of drunks who proceeded to call after us and started to follow us. So we turned down another street to get away (Hna Castro saying "Corra, corra" every five seconds), and ran into the Via cruces, which is where they reenact the processional to Calvary, so we turned down another street to avoid that, and ended up all the way at the limit of our area.

Lesson learned: don´t go to Felipe Carrillo Puerto on a holiday. 

-Friday was interesting because all of our investigators were either drunk or in Church. hah. It makes life difficult for a missionary. 

-But can we talk about CONFERENCE! And how much I loved it?! And how excited I am about the gospel. How amazing it is that we have prophets in our day to lead us in this troubled world. I hope you all had the chance to listen because it was the BOMB. Of course, that may have been because all the talks were written for me, but I´m sure you can learn something too. 

-Sunday in between sessions we ate with the Araujo Family (who we baptized in January), and it made me incredibly happy to sit at their table outside their house and just enjoy this family on its way to eternity. It was incredible to see the traces of their former life in their home, but here them talk about Priesthood and prophets and conference and how much the gospel has changed their lives. It doesn´t get much better than that. 

Hna Chamorro y Yo

Also they fed us fish that was amazing, Oh, and I totes ate its eyeball.

Hermano Dionisio frying us some fish. :) 

Me with my fish. It was like the best thing ever.

Fish. It was delicious. I ate that whole thing.

Because that´s what they do in the Yucatan. :) 

Happy Easter everyone. I am so very very grateful for the sacrifice of my Savior so that I can live with my Heavenly Father in an eternal family someday. And never, ever forget that He lives. Even now. And that if we look for Him, He can be PRESENT and ACTIVE in our lives.

I love you all. I love my Savior. And I love the children of God I get to serve here in Chuburná. 

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson

Familia Araujo & Las Misioneras

Easter, Women, & A Funeral

¡Buenas días!

It was a really good week. :) Here are the highlights:

Carlos (who we´ve been teaching for a few weeks) finally accepted a baptismal date!!!! We´ve been asking and asking for weeks but it took him....a long time....to finally understand what the Book of Mormon is. I may have used fairy tales, drawings, the dictionary, and every scripture I could think of to explain it to him. And then one day we showed him the video of Gracias a que Èl Vive and after he was just like, "Yeah I´ll get baptized." Like it was no big deal. Hahaha It just shows that it doesn´t matter what we say, it´s what they feel.

And when you know you know, you know?

We went to contact a reference we got from a investigator.....and showed up at her funeral. Woops. #Badtiming On the plus side, I bet she´s listening to missionaries in the spirit world right now.

Also, can we talk about the Women´s Meeting. I LOVED it. Even though I watched it in Spanish (everyone should be able to talk in their own language. I don´t like voice-overs for anything). I loved how Pres. Eyring talked about how WE can be the ones who help make other people´s burdens light. That´s what we promise when we get baptized, to lift others up. I realized that´s really what I´m doing here: lifting others. Whether that means inviting them to get baptized, talking them into coming to church for the first time in weeks, listening to a member unload her burdens to us, singing a hymn in the calle, or just saying "Buenas tardes" with a smile to someone in the street. I am here to lift and build.

And I´m determined to leave this area better than I found it. :)

As we approach Easter, I´ve thought a lot about the Atonement, and what Christ suffered, but also those four words that mean so much to me:

He is not here.

He was not in the tomb. He rose the third day. He lives today. He was not in the tomb, but He can be present EVERY SINGLE DAY of our lives. So many people here remember Christ on the cross, and that´s important, but I am here to testify of a Living Christ.
  D&C 68:6 Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear  record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.

He lives. And because He lives we will too. And I just want the whole world to know. I love being a missionary. I love you all!!!!

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson