Nicole, Mérida, & the Plan

What does one write after their last full week as a missionary....I´m not entirely sure. I could tell you about my week:

-the Bishop bought us food every night in a last ditch effort to send me home fat

-for the anniversary of the Relief Society there was a stake activity and every ward danced a jarana. #IloveMexico #lajaranaeselbailedeYucatan 

Relief Society Anniversary: Barrio Quintero

Con mi terno.....just kidding it´s not mine.

-Nicole got baptized. And it was beautiful. I love that family that is on its way to being eternal. 

-I hit 18 months.

-The Bishop made me speak in sacrament meeting. #Ididn´tcry #maybeIwantedto

-Flaviano and his sister Lucía came to church again. #he´sgonesixtimes

-We taught a man named Alfredo. He came to church. And now he wants to get baptized as soon as possible. 

Zona Brisas

It was a great week. And it made me realize exactly how much I am going to miss this beautiful, hard, crazy, amazing experience that is the mission. I learned so much and I feel like I have lived a thousand lives beneath the Mérida sun. I can´t even begin to explain it all, but this is what I know:

I know that God lives. I know He is our Father, and that He loves us and knows us personally. I know that He has a plan for each one of us, and that His plan is perfect. I know that He can do more with us than we could ever do on our own. I know that Christ is our Savior and that His Atonement can rescue us from both the obscurity of sin and the darkness of trials and sorrows. I know that this Church is true. I know it was restored through a prophet of God, and that we have the fulness of the gospel of Christ. I know that I needed to come to Mérida to find the God´s plan for me, and I´m just begining to understand it. And I plan on searching out this plan for the rest of my life. 

I know these things to be true. I don´t know everything but I know enough. 

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson

Obispo Parra

Our daughter

My super cute daughters.

Miracles, 5, & HNUS

MTC!

Elder Relitz, Elder Wright, Elder Evan, Elder Calmes, Me, Hna Rhondeau

Hola!

I saw two miracles this week:

1. Yuri a less active member who we have been visiting had cancer...and now she doesn´t. We´re not sure how it happened, but it is amazing and was the result of a lot of prayers and fasting.

2. Armando. He´s a less active member we found in like July. He got REALLY sick this last week and I honestly thought he was dying. But the whole ward got moving and started helping and now´s he´s doing so much better. And one of the families is going to take him to live with them! 

Armando. My miracle.

Okay three miracles, this week after not finding more than 1 new investigator last week, we found 5...in one day. I´m not entirely sure how it happened but I know that it wasn´t us who did it. This is the Lord´s work, and He prepares a way for it to happen. 

Also we had our Christmas party yesterday (hence I´m writing on Tuesday) and even though that meant we got up at 1amand got home at 11:30pm it was really awesome. Highlights:

-Presidente & Hna Garcia spoke

-Our Zone Leaders fell asleep while we sang silent night.

-Seeing the WHOLE mission. And knowing a lot more people than last year.

Love these guys.

Hna Hoggan & Hna Velasquez

My kids! (& Hna Hoggan!)

-Getting our generation together after almost 15 months

Our generation

-Christmas.

And what I´ve thought about is that during Christmas we celebrate the birth of Christ. Because without Him there would be no way to ever go back ot the presence of our Heavenly Father. Every mistake and every error would move us farther away from Him forever.

But Christ was born in Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago. 

And He lives today.

And through Him we can start over. We can repent. Ane we can return to our Father in Heaven.

#HaNacidoUnSalvador

I love you all!

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson

I´m told I make this face a lot...

Milagritos, Marvels, & México

¡Hola!

This week was one of the marvellous weeks when (almost) everything goes right. We had a ton of members helping us out, we found new investigators (including one who like to speak really bad english with me), and we didn´t get rained on. 

#winning

Also Hna Romero is great, she wants to learn EVERYTHING, and it´s fun to remember what is was like to start out. And even though she´s from Mexico it´s funny to see how different the culture is here in the peninsula. And it was also really funny when this dog tried to steal her towel this week. (She still loves the dogs.) 

The biggest miracles I have seen this week have been the littlest: like watching the less active 13 year old who we´ve been teaching forever finally get to pass the sacrament, happening to be in a member´s house when he shows up with a friend who becomes and investigator, giving a Book of Mormon to someone who used to love it... Those are the best things. The little things that you can´t really predict and you can´t really measure.

Hna Romero, Cinthia, Hna Wilson

That is my favorite part of the mission.

I am happy and healthy and doing so great here in Campeche. I love being a missionary. And I love you all.   

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson

Zona Campeche

Buckets, Iguana, & Chugging

Mis Queridos,

What a week. Kind of a roller coaster, but that keeps things interesting, right?? We´re in what I like to call the "finding" phase of the work. We don´t have many investigators, and so we've been putting in a lot of time hunting down references (want to know how many incorrect addresses we've gotten???),  going around with Hna Delfina (who I swear literally knows every single person in her colonia, I want to be her when I grow up), and just talking to as many people as we can. 

And it can be really hard.

Hna Castro & I 

But (there´s always a but right??), I realized this week that it´s when all of our plans have fallen through, when we've been straight out rejected by everyone, when my feet think they can´t go anymore, when we´re literally standing in the pouring rain asking people if we can please teach them; it´s at that point that we always find someone. I think it´s Heavenly Father´s way of showing me that He´s in charge, and I just have to keep chugging. 

And that´s when we get miracles. Like finding 4 new investigators in the last three days the week (after 0 the first 4 days that´s a miracle), like finally having investigators with a baptismal date, like having an incredible day in the capilla when the lessons are perfect for your investigator...

And like showing up to a member´s house and having them tell you that you answered their prayer, that they needed someone and we showed up. 

Piano with the familia Mull

Miracles.

There are so many in the mission that sometimes I don´t think about how they actually are miracles. Sometimes I realize I´m just a 20 year old kid from a little town in Oregon, and I really have no idea how to help people face some of the problems that I see out here, but time and time again, Heavenly Father helps me out (A LOT) and I've been able to help people in ways that I never could on my own.

In other news: 

We got rained on. Twice. And when we talk about rain here in the Yucatan it´s like buckets of water being dumped on my head. Hah. And it´s humid here so I just walk around damp for the rest of the day. 

After the rain, looking for directions

It´s all good. The drowned cat look is good for me. I now know to bring my umbrella even when there´s not a cloud in the sky. 

I learned that the Elders who were here before us (like 3 companionships) brought iguana to one hermana for her to cook. 

And they actually ate it. #NOTDOINGTHAT. 

A dog popped out of a window in a wall (RIGHT NEXT TO MY EAR) and tried to eat me. I may have jumped...but just a little.

There may have also been people laughing at me as they drove by. #totesstillhatethedogshere

All in all, the life is good. I love being a missionary, and even when it´s hard (because, yes it´s hard sometimes) I know I´m where I´m supposed to be. I've felt such LOVE from my Heavenly Father, and I know He´s always helping me out.

I love you all. 

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson

   

Miracle Killers, Head Games, & Anniversaries

My Dearest Family...and other people who are equally as dear,

This week was a good one!!! (Do I say that every week??) We don´t have a lot of investigators...like 1... but we accomplished a lot of our goals and in the ninth hour (like Sunday night..)  we found a family with a lot of potential and I have high hopes for Chuburná.

In the MTC I remember my teachers talking about not letting people kill your miracles, and I thought, "Who would do that?? That can´t be real issue." But it´s real people. A lot of people this week have told us what a difficult area we have, that no one´s really had succes...yada yada yada....It´s not true. We have some challenges here for sure, but Preach My Gospel says if we lower our expectations we lower our ability.

And I don´t know about you, but I plan on baptizing the world...or at least one Jehovah´s Witness. (I have an odd talent of managing to find every single JW to contact in the streets. Hermana Castro is always very impressed.) It´s going to happen ;)

I´ve been trying to avoid falling into a rut of just doing the work, and so I´ve been focusing a lot on listening to the Spirit. And wow has that been cool. I try to picture the people we´re teaching in the temple or the baptismal font and think about what they need to get there. Every time I feel such love from Heavenly Father for the people here and I can´t help but love them too. And I really do love them, even if sometimes they frustrate me to no end. :) I told Hermana Castro the other day that I feel like a mom with a lot of problem children. haha

One of those is an hermana who is less active, she´s 18, pregnant and her boyfriend (who is also a member) lives there with her family. Her name is Reyna and she´s a little bit terrified to be a mom, and never really had a conversion to the gospel. So the other day we just had a feeling we should go over there to visit here. She let us in (a little bit reluctantly) and we sat down to teach.

With absolutely no game plan. Hah.

So I flipped through my himnario (what is this word in english???) and saw "Paz Calmense" (Not sure what it´s called in english either...it goes like "master the tempest is raging..." etc.) and just had the feeling to sing that. And from there we taught a whole lesson on the story and it was just really cool. And then...

Reyna and Isaac (her boyfriend) came to church yesterday!!!!! And it was literally like the third time in the four months I´ve been here. And it just made me incredibly happy.

Speaking of beautiful moments in the church...fast and testimony meeting, Hermana Margarita gets up to bear her testimony and started crying and thanked us (from the pulpit) for remembering her baptism anniversary (we dropped of a card and a chocolate). And it was just the coolest thing ever.

Now, I´m not telling you that because I think we´re awesome or something, I just realized that I actually am making a difference here. That even if we´re a little bit low on investigators right now, we´re touching hearts and changing lives. I don´t remember what I wrote in the card for Hna Margarita, but it touched her, and it reminded me that this mission isn´t about numbers and baptisms.

I am here to invite others to come unto Christ.

And that comes in a lot of forms. And I just love having the opportunity to do it. I love the gospel and I love being a missionary.

And I love you all. :)

¡Vale la pena!

Hermana Wilson

PS Cambios were yesterday...guess who is going to spend a third of her mission in Chuburná....this girl! BTWs I´ve finished a third of my mission. How did that happen??

Elote in Centro. Again proving how attractive I am.