October 20, 2014

Tell me about the family you are living with…

We eat all of the meals with our pensionista. She is so awesome, and we are so lucky to have her. (Other missionaries have to fend for themselves for meals.) We don’t have a kitchen…not even a microwave. Our room is tiny and there is no space for that stuff. We just have a mini fridge, but, we hardly use it. They have kids but only one lives with them. The pension is downstairs and the daughter lives across the hall with her husband. She is 35. She lost her baby boy recently. But, they’re doing good. She has the weirdest sense of humor, and she laughs at everything she says. Yea, she’s great. There are crazy rules for pensions and the food that we are allowed to eat. They are getting stricter every month with the rules too. We can’t eat with members anymore…just the pension. From Monday to Friday, we eat downstairs with the pension, and the weekends are with the daughter. It’s awesome though because they make such good food. I’ve been doing somewhat of a diet lately. The diet of the apple. Just eat an apple before every meal, and lower the portion of the meal. It’s pretty good at helping the appetite, I think.

How is it going with your companion?

My companion and I get along really well. We joke around, we have good lessons teaching united, and we know each other pretty well. He is awesome, a really hard worker, and I’ve learned a lot from him. He has trained 3 other missionaries, so he’s great. We’ve been helping each other out with language studies. His mouth wasn’t built for speaking English. It’s crazy. He just can’t say stuff sometimes! Ha-ha, its funny.

Where are you living in relation to the mission home?

We live like less than an hour from the mission home. The mission home sends stuff out every week to the different areas. I’ve been there twice. It’s a really nice place.

What is your daily schedule like?

Wake at 6:20 for prayers. 6:30 - 7 exercise. 7-7:30 we get ready for the day. 7:30 - 8 breakfast. 8-9 personal study. 9-10 companion study. Depending on the day, we either proselyte or have service, district and zone meetings, or weekly planning session for 4 hours. 1 o’clock is lunch. 2-3 is language study. 3-4 is training. We train in stuff like practicing how to teach all the different lessons, and watching videos from the district and stuff like that. 4-9 is proselyting. 9-whenever we finish is planning for tomorrow, and then we eat dinner after planning. We normally have ten or so minutes to prep for tomorrow, and in bed at 10:30. We don’t knock doors ever. We contact every family that we see in the street. This mission is about baptizing families, and if you walk past a family without contacting them, it’s a sin. We try to have appointments for every single hour, but the appointments fall through all the time. Peruvians don’t seem to care about time. To lots of them, time just isn’t a factor. It’s hard to make appointments like that.

I finally got my bag from the mission and it’s pretty cool. I also got a cool, touch screen Adidas watch from a less active sister. It’s a really nice watch and she just gave it to me, not really sure why. We’re doing good. Having rough times and good times. This week wasn’t all that eventful or great, but I know the gospel is true. I know that God lives. Jesus is His only begotten son, and He died for us so that we may live. I know that Joseph Smith restored this gospel and that the Book of Mormon is evidence of the truthfulness of this restored gospel. 

I miss you guys and think of you often. Loves, hugs and kisses to all!

Love,

Elder Wilson