When it rains it pours

Hello my friends! So my email title is both literal and metaphorical. A couple of days this week it was dumping rain and it was awesome/cold and there was even a frog that somehow got in the house! But, since we pushed through the rain, we got some blessings. We found some solid people to teach... and we may or may not have had a baptism fall into our hands!

Lets start of with our potential baptism. Her name is Aranza and she is 14 years old. Her cousins are all members and she decided to come to church the last 2 weeks and we didn't even know that she wasn't a member. After talking with her we found out she wasn't a member and that she is very, very interested in our message! We could baptize her this next Sunday but we are thinking about waiting until the following week so we can help her understand everything. I am praying that this will all work out because I am kinda craving a baptism haha!

Maria Esther, our investigator is still super interested, but we can't get her to come to church! We have taught her every lesson and we keep telling her that she needs to come to church to be baptized haha. She is such a sweet and nice lady and I know that she will be a solid member when she decides to come to church!

We found a brother and sister last week and this week finally taught them. The brother's name is Andrés (23) and the sister is Melisa (15). They are such good people and are super dope! Andrés knows a lot of English so I help him with that as he helps me with my Spanish. Melisa was nervous during the lesson because she didn't know all the answers to our questions so I said, "you're nervous? Picture me trying to speak Spanish to you guys!" and she got a good laugh out of that. I see lots of potential with these 2 and I am super excited to keep teaching them!

Now time for some fun stuff. I mentioned that a frog was in our house and I have no clue how it got in. We live upstairs in our house which means the thing had to hop up somethin'. I woke up and walked into the other room with my desk and saw a little green thing hopping around. I caught him and named him Richie, I later made a cage for him... and he escaped and is living somewhere in the house! Also, last night Elder Hunter and I got bored when we got home so we made a fort and played card games. I can thank Grandma Worthington for teaching me how to play Skip-Bo and Phase 10 because I kicked his butt! Then this morning we played basketball and a group of like 8, 13 year old boys came up to talk to me because they have never seen a tall white person play basketball. I ended up talking to them for a while while the other Elders played and got 3 contacts out of it so that's cool haha. 

I have been reading in the New Testament this week and have learned lots of great things! The thing I loved the most was a scripture that says something like, "Whatever thing you ask for in faith will be given". The Lord wants us all to succeed but we aren't going to be given stuff for free. We need to have faith and one of the parts of faith, is work. This was a nice little reminder with me and my Spanish and helped me to continue to study hard!

Love you all! 

Elder Wilde 

Richie

Our fort

Getting my hair cut by Elder Ortiz

Elder Hunter showing off his basketball skills in the street

ILYSB

Happy love week, lovers! Nothing I love more than preachin' the good ole word of Christ! Here is the deal, it was another slow week but I have a really good feeling about this next week. Maria Esther is our one baptismal date that is progressing the most and she promised me that she will be at church this Sunday! 

So, Thursday we did divisions with the Elders in Indeco. I was with Elder Ortiz in our area and Hunter went to Villahermosa to be with Cicerone. I was actually really excited for this day because I wanted to see where my Spanish was at. Elder Ortiz is one of the funniest dudes ever! He kept telling stories about the drunk guys in the mission and it was awesome! We tried to find new people to teach but it was a struggle. On the bright side, I totally was speaking Spanish and it was dope. Later that night we had an appointment with Maria Esther and we taught the commandments. When we got to the Word of Wisdom she was a little confused on why we can't drink coffee. I promised her that if she went a week without coffee she will receive many blessings. Because she always gives us Gatorade when we go over, I told her to replace the coffee with that! She made the deal that she would stop and then come to church this upcoming Sunday the 23rd because she couldn't come yesterday. This lady loves me so much and we are always cracking jokes! I also love teaching her because I actually understand her Spanish haha. 

Valentines Day was a special day. Hunter had the idea to wear matching ties, which I hated, but he said it was for "unity". We were walking to an appointment and it started pouring rain, like it was the heaviest rain I have ever seen. We showed up to the appointment and the girl we were teaching wasn't there. Afterwards we stopped by a members house to get some references and she only gave us one, but that is better than zero! She is also one of those people that wants me to speak perfect Spanish so we are always talking and she makes me teach her the lessons which is dope. Afterwards, we got home and made a Spaghetti dinner with Mountain Dew and candles. Holy cow it was awesome. I sang all of the LANY songs to Hunter and said that was "unity". He eventually told me to shut up and we read the Book of Mormon haha. 

I have been reading the book "Saints" and I am loving it. I love how cool those stories are of the first members of the church. Hunter and I had a good conversation and put ourselves in the shoes of the people during that time. It would be tough to see a 14 year old boy trying to tell you he saw Jesus Christ and God and that he needs to restore his church. The act of faith that the saints have is incredible! It is also cool to see that Joseph Smith wasn't some perfect guy, he sinned too. The atonement is even for the Prophet and I love that. The love that Jesus has for us is incredible and I am so grateful for that!

Love you all! Stay sweet!

Elder Wilde

Just a little rain storm ;)

Our Valentine's spaghetti dinner

Shattered My Entire Universe

Week who knows what in Macuspana and I'm still chillin. This week was a bad week and a good week. It was good because we set 2 more baptismal dates and found 11 more people to teach. It was bad because out of our 8 people we have in line to baptize, 0 came to church... it just shattered my entire universe. 

So, the one thing that is really tough here is telling people that baptism needs to be done by the proper authority. Candi (14) and Cytlali (23) are the 2 people we set dates with this week. Both are really good girls but they don't understand the whole authority thing. We explained to them both how Christ was baptized in a certain way because it's the right way and they don't listen haha it is tough. Candi asked what makes our church true and we talked about prophets and apostles and she totally felt that it was true... then she goes "but I like my church right now". Picture how frustrated we were haha!

Maria Esther and her son Alexis are our 2 most promising at the moment, but yet again, they don't understand the authority part. We explained receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands and she goes "I remember they did that when I was baptized in the catholic church". Duuuuudeeee it's so tough! They totally know it is true and wanna keep learning. 

Omar and Arturo cancelled on us every day we tried to visit and it is because their family hates us. We are going to visit them with the bishop someday and he is going to share his conversion story. He was in the same situation as these boys. 

The numbers show a really good week but we felt like it sucked. We are trying so hard to get people to progress and it is tough. We had a good companionship study this week and talked about Christ and how he knows EVERYTHING. He knows that we are trying our hardest to progress with these people and it hasn't been going how we want it. We have noticed that every time we study in the morning together and keep grinding and working we find people to teach. I have learned so much stuff this week and have felt the spirit strong! I love this church so much and serving here, even if it means I walk around sweating like crazy trying to find people. 

Love you all!

Elder Wilde 

Cutest Couple

Howdy pals! This week was awesome! First off, my comp and I get along really well and that has helped a lot. We like to talk in our hick accent and it is always a good time. Most importantly, we have 6 baptismal dates set up! 

So let's start with the baptismal dates:

1. Maria Esther and her son Alexis. We were looking for another person and we passed their house and I told Hunter we should go ask them for directions. We ended up contacting them on Tuesday and set the date on Wednesday. She is such a nice lady and her son is super cool too. Only problem is he has school in Villahermosa so it is tough to find him. During the lesson we asked if they had heard about our church and she said, "I know you guys worship Will Smith or something like that." I thought that was funny.

2. Omar and Arturo. I talked about them last week if you don't recognize the names. We taught the Plan of Salvation and Arturo was freaking pumped when we told him the Celestial Kingdom is like the sun haha. It was tough to find Omar but we finally did on Friday. He told us how he talked to his parents and said he wants to be a member, but they didn't like that because they are super catholic. All we have to do is talk to his parents and he can be baptized. At least that is what I am hoping and praying for. Please keep them in your prayers, especially his parents. I am hoping they will have an open mind and their hearts will be softened when they hear our message. 

3. Claudia and Luis. This is a funny one. We found Luis in the park with his buddies and contacted them. We have set up dates to go visit all of their families so we can gain that trust. We were joking around acting like we spoke Chinese and the kids really thought that we did so now they are always saying "how do you say _ in Chinese?" and it is hilarious. Claudia is the mom of Luis and she loves us... a lot. I set the baptism dates with them and talked about goals and I later asked what her goal is. She said, "to have my daughter marry Elder Hunter." Not sure that one is going to happen, but it’s good to have goals I guess. 

We also found 14 new people to teach so this was a good week. I think we were so successful because of my nice beard I had. On Wednesday I forgot to shave and we set 2 baptismal dates and found 6 people so Hunter told me I wasn't aloud to shave. Fear the beard! (Know that I am kidding dad. If you know me then you know that I can’t even really grow a beard)

I titled the email "cutest couple" because we have been told how “cute” we are. Hunter made the joke saying, "we need to use our looks to get in the door.” I also named it that because we get along so well. We are literally the same person even though he hates country music. 

This week was awesome and I am so pumped to keep working here! Love you all! 

Elder Wilde

It's a lot easier ordering Sushi in America than it is in Mexico