This week was a pretty average week. Not much to report to be quite honest. Except, as we were walking one day, this convey, or a small bus as you might call it, drove up alongside of us. (Side note: all the conveys have a cobrador, which is the person that collects the money for the passage, to wherever you’re going) The cobrador was a big lady. Apparently, she and the driver had coordinated to drive up alongside the missionaries and bug this gringo guy. She was making kissy noises and kissy faces, telling me that I was handsome, to get in the convey, she would treat me really nice. Then she told me "let’s go to my house. I will cook for you and treat you right." I know it sounds gross, but that’s just because I translated it to English. In Spanish it sounded a whole lot funnier. It was the funniest thing, and although I did not give heed to the "enticing" opportunity, I was cracking up. It was a small bus that was really full, so the fact that they did that, just to try to annoy the missionaries, making all the other passengers in the small bus have to wait that extra time…it was pretty hilarious! I wrote that down in my journal. It was great.
Other than that, we found out yesterday from the second counselor in the bishopric that the bishop’s daughter is pregnant. She’s like 18 years old and not married. She is a really smart and cool girl. She attended seminary and I think institute as well. But, the bishop and his family are recent converts. They’ve only been members for about 2 or 3 years. It’s something that’s had the bishop a little upset lately. If you could be praying for him, and maybe put his name in the temple that would be great. Oh and also, yesterday was fast and testimony meeting and for the 2nd time in a long time, our elders quorum president came to church. What had happened is that he is a returned missionary, sealed in the temple and he has a little boy. He and his wife are not getting along very well. He lost his job as a taxi driver because he didn’t want to work on the days that he had stuff to do with his calling and his family. So they don’t call him in to work anymore. He recently found out that his son needs super expensive operations and exams for an eye issue that he has. This guy is really young, no more than 28 years old or so. He’s got a lot going on in his life. He had stopped paying his tithing due to these big money issues and he hasn’t been coming to church due to another job that he got, having him work on Sunday in the early morning. Anyway, with all that said, we visited his nephew in law, who is an investigator of ours. We invited the elders quorum president to sit in the lesson with us. We had heard from his sister in law that he had stopped paying his tithing due to all that stuff. So, yesterday he came to church, and bore his testimony. He said that he has since gained a testimony of tithing, that he knows that the promise of tithing is true, and that the missionaries are really angels sent from God. He said that he had been struggling the last little bit in his life, but that he felt prompted that he needed to sit in that lesson with us, accompanying his nephew. We taught, read scriptures, and testified of the importance and the power of tithing, and he was able to do it and see the blessings in his life. It was great to see him putting that principle to practice. He is a really great guy. I was just glad that we could help him because in my whole time here, this was his second time coming to church. No one had visited him or anything. It’s difficult at times to think that the members will talk, moan, whine, and complain that someone isn’t fulfilling their calling. But, the members will almost never go out, just as Christ did…to leave the 99 and go find the 1. It’s a really simple principle to go and visit but it’s just something that doesn’t happen very often or effectively. It’s sad. We’ve been told a lot that our main job is to baptize converts, not to visit the less actives. But, seeing that there are 1 million, no joke, less active members here, it’s something that we have to do as requested by the stake presidents and from our mission president. Enough of that. Please, always remember and keep in mind the impact that a visit can have and does have on those that you visit. Normally they are people that never receive anyone in their house, and the joy that they feel when they hear a gospel message is something indescribable. Even if it is visiting your assigned families who are active members of the church, they really do appreciate and love the company because it just doesn’t happen very often. I would encourage you to always be making your visits a priority. Time is not an excuse, because who doesn’t have 5 seconds to knock on the door. At the very least, say hi! Remember please. It’s something so simple yet so impactful.
I hope to put these things in practice when I get back…to always do my visits. It’s something that I didn’t appreciate or even like to do. Thanks to faithful and hardworking home teaching companions that the Lord blessed me with, I have been able to do it, see it, and live it here in the mission as well.
That’s just about all I got for now. Love you guys so much! I’ll be going to the temple this week with the missionaries here in the zone to do an endowment session. The last week we weren’t able to enter the temple due to a ton of people that showed up from a really far away city. We had to wait until this Saturday to go with the recently activated young woman that we had brought the last time. All is well here. I hope you have a great week!!!
Love,
Elder Wilson
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